Getting a message??

At our church we have a Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. Every day 24/7 someone is in our chapel for a one hour period of time in reverent devotion. What is Adoration? I copied the following explanation.

Adoration (in a holy hour) is a period of meditation, prayers and devotion in the presence of the Holy Eucharist exposed on the altar. There is no fixed way to spend the hour; the adorer will probably experiment with many. In a sense it is continuation in time of the moment of elevation at Mass, when the priest shows the host to the people, who pause momentarily in adoration. Our Church began Perpetual Adoration on Easter morning 2007 as a response to the Holy Father's request for greater devotion to Christ in the Eucharist. It is called "perpetual" because the Holy Eucharist is exposed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week...except for Holy Saturday.

I had long felt the desire to participate, but had managed to procrastinate in making a commitment. Then in January, a weekday slot opened up during what I like to call the middle of the night. The slot is really in the early hours of the morning of a new day. Living so close to the church compelled me to commit to an hour that might prove to be more of a hardship for others. I literally roll out of the bed twenty minutes before I need to relieve the person who worships the hour before me. This allows me the time to dress in the dark and walk to the chapel.

During our Church renovation we have been using the chapel at the rectory (priests' home). The rectory is located at the far end of the Church campus and is the farthest building from my home. It's still a very short walk. A walk with varying degrees of street post lighting and dark mostly quiet shadowy areas. The area closest to the rectory has minimal lighting and a lawn with several mature trees casting dark shadows.

I braved up and decided to walk to the chapel each week instead of driving thus contributing to the saving of the environment. The first month's walk went well enough and was quite uneventful. I've found that nobody wants to be out and about in the middle of the night in the winter. Then February arrived with a mild snow storm. I put on my warmest sweat pants, my USF hockey jersey, pulled on my snow boots, and wore my big purple Raiders car coat. I was super warm and ready to battle the elements.

Walking down the sidewalk was quite taxing. My ankles began to ache terribly and my shins felt like they were burning as I shuffled through the snow covered sidewalk. I decided that it would be easier to cross through the snow covered grass to the parking lot than to continue walking on the sidewalk. The parking lot looked to have been plowed, having less accumulated snow on the lot surface. A grassy area slopes down to the parking lot and the plowed snow had been pushed to the edge of the parking lot where it meets the grass. So I would have to get over the mound (mountain) of snow to enter the parking lot.

I made it down the slope easily enough. Then I had to get over the mound of snow. Being short and lacking any athletic ability, I decided to straddle the mound and throw my back leg over the mound (much like getting on and off a horse). It was a nice idea. As I attempted to straddle the mound my front foot sunk is the fresh soft snow causing me to loose my balance and land straddled in the mound. I did manage to get my back leg through the pile of snow and drag myself upright and onto the parking lot. At this point I had snow all over my sweat pants and in my boots. I arrived snow covered, damp, and on time to the chapel. The way home was much easier now that I had blazed a trail.

March arrived and I managed to get myself freaked out and scared, necessitating driving instead of walking. (There were also some rainy thunderstorm nights.) So much of March through May I drove. Finally with a new resolve, I began walking to the chapel again.

I've discovered that there seems to be more activity in the summer late nights as compared to the winter. I often see a few cars driving down the road, some people walking, and even an occasional bike rider.

At the end of June as I walked across the parking lot to the chapel, I saw a jeep parked on the edge of the lot between the school and the rectory. I didn't think much of it because there have been several occasions when various vehicles have been parked somewhere on the lot. I do steer clear of the vehicles keeping a wide berth between me and them. I did this as well with the jeep but noticed that there definitely was someone in the driver's side of the jeep. As I nervously walked by; the person in the jeep had her window rolled down and said hello to me. I said hello and kept right on moving. At the end of my hour the jeep was still there and I just hurried on home.

Last night brought me to the conclusion that I'm not saving the Earth all that much by driving less than a mile round trip to the rectory. Last night before my daughter's bedtime I asked her if she wanted to go with me for my hour of adoration. She said yes so I found her a book about saints that she could read during the hour and packed it in my prayer tote bag.

The alarm goes off and I get her up so we can head off to the rectory chapel. A few cars drive by as we walk down the sidewalk. We cross into the parking lot and I noticed that one of the cars has entered at the far end of the lot where we are headed. The car is stopped with it's lights on just waiting. I'm quite suspicious and we stop walking. Then it looks like someone is getting out of the car. I grab my cell phone, tell my daughter that we are going home to get the car, and begin to input our home phone number into the phone in case I need to call someone. As we turn to head home the car backs up and turns around to come toward us. I tell my daughter to run home and get in the house. Like a good girl she takes off unlike my boys who many years ago when we had another scary situation stayed right behind me instead of locking themselves in the house.

The car pulls up to me and there are four girls in the vehicle. They say they are not from town and they are looking for a Mc Donald's. Do I know where there is a Mc Donald's? I gave them Mc Donald directions. Then they ask if they scared me and say they are sorry to have scared me. They obviously were not that sorry since I could hear them laughing as they drove out of the parking lot.

I looked up and my daughter is down the sidewalk ready to cross the road. (She should have made it home.) So I tell her to come on back and we head to the chapel. I put my phone away and we have a quiet peaceful adoration time. We walk back home and I see the lights are on in my house. Never have the lights been on. Everyone is asleep or trying to sleep when I leave and return. So now I'm once again on full alert.

We enter the house and Doug is up working on the computer. Evidently when I input our phone number, I think that I somehow dialed the house but hung up. Doug said that right after I left the phone rang and when he scrambled to get the phone there was a dial tone. The weird thing is that when I went to put my phone away the option on the screen was dial, message, cancel and I clicked on cancel. He tried to go to bed after the phone call but was worried about us. Then the weather radio went off warning of severe thunderstorms. Those events ended his sleep and he waited for us to get back home.

I put my daughter to bed and asked her if she was alright. Evidently she had fun and enjoy the quiet reflection time in the chapel. Keyed up from the adventures of the night and knowing that sleep would not happen anytime soon, I went out to take pictures of the Church. I had been wanting to get some new evening shots now that the Church renovations have mostly been finished. In all of the excitement I noticed that the parking lot lights in front of the Church were not on. Without the extra lighting, I hoped to get some clear night shots. I didn't know when I'd ever get another opportunity to photograph the Church without the exterior lighting. As long as I couldn't sleep I was counting on the fact that one scare (two-Doug with the lights on) for the night is all one gets. So I should be fine venturing back out into the night.

The nights have been very warm and humid here with day time temperatures in the 90's. As a result of the humid night my camera lens kept fogging up and I had to clean the lens take a picture or two, readjust the tripod, clean the lens and take more photos. As I moved to another spot for a long shot of of the Church another car pulls into the lot. I noticed right away that it was a police car, so I just ignored the car and continued to set-up my shot. I couldn't take the shot because the car's headlights were coming across the lens so I had to wait for the officer to pull up beside me. When he pulled up by me I lean into the window of the car and he says so you're taking pictures.? I reply that it's great lighting for some night photos. I then tell him to have a good night. He drives off. I take two more pictures and head home.

I'm pretty sure that I will now be driving to the rectory chapel.

Mitch Miller and Christmas Traditions

Today Doug told me that Mitch Miller died. Evidently he died Saturday, July 31st. He was 90 years old. I don't know about you but Mitch Miller is a part of my childhood Christmas traditions. My favorite Christmas album (yes album) is Mitch Miller & the Sing Along Gang - Holiday Sing-Along with Mitch. My siblings and I grew up listening to and robustly singing along with Mitch's many Christmas songs all December long. The coolest thing about Mitch's Christmas Sing-Along album was the album size piece of paper with the lyrics to all but one of the songs typed on it. Mitch said something like everyone knew the words to The Christmas Song so he did not include the lyrics on the page. Frankly, they ran out of room and couldn't include lyrics for all the songs on the album, but nice try Mitch.

There must have been three or four of these papers inside the album jacket. I don't remember fighting over the sheets so I think that there must have been four sheets. Although my youngest sister is five years younger so presumably she didn't need a song sheet for awhile. Being the good child of the family, she would not have fought the other three of us for a paper. We'd sit or sprawl out across the family room floor with my parents and each of us kids would get a sheet and sing right along with Mitch. One of our favorites was Must Be Santa. Oh we loved trying to keep up with that song. I do have to say that to this day, in my opinion, no one sings Silver Bells better that Mitch Miller.

I never thought of this as a particular tradition or anything special until I met Doug. At one point while we were dating Doug was at my [family] house and we came across my family's Christmas albums. I think the albums were on a bookshelf in the living room. Anyway he pulled out the Mitch Miller album and began sharing his family memories about singing with Mitch and the sheets of music in the album. Doug also mentioned Chet Atkins and sure enough we pulled that album out of the collection too.

Then it turned out that our mutual good friend Joe Vizzi also grew up with the Christmas Mitch Miller. We all shared our memories of those family gatherings. It was very interesting to hear how similar our experience with the Christmas Mitch Miller was. At the time I was amazed by the fact that although we grew up across the United States from each other, Doug in Seattle, WA, Joe in Tampa, FL and I in Memphis, TN, had different religious upbringings, ethnic backgrounds, and age differences we shared an almost identical family Christmas tradition. We all agreed that the coolest part of Mitch was the song sheets.

At this point in time CDs were becoming popular and Joe had the Mitch Miller & the Sing Along Gang - Holiday Sing-Along with Mitch CD. He lamented that it wasn't the same without the sheet music. I remember that we thought they should include an address on the CD where we could send away for the sheets of music to go with the CD. Keep in mind that this was in the ancient days before Al Gore invented the Internet (although, no lie, Al Gore is way older than me). It was also before scanners and copy machines were all over the place. We never thought to photocopy the sheet music. Mitch also had another sing along Christmas album and once again we all agreed that it was not a family favorite. Why? I'm guessing that it was because the songs were more traditional in nature and no lyric sheets accompanied the album.

Today we have many of our old Christmas favorites in CD form. Although with Doug and I, our children haven't grown up sitting around and singing Christmas songs like we use to. Do they get inundated with Christmas music from the day after Thanksgiving until the Epiphany? Absolutely!! I wonder what their favorite Christmas songs and artists are? What's yours?

On a side note, I've mentioned before Doug's tremendous enjoyment of music. Every other year my school has a big fund-raiser where they have silent auction items and live action items. The past two fund raisers we have donated a CD and I-Tunes card basket. Both years the baskets consisted of rock oldie CDs that Doug literally begins purchasing the day after the fund-raiser for the next event in two years. He gets the best of the bargain CDs. For the next fund-raiser in 2011-2012, we had decided on donating a Christmas CD themed basket. Mitch Miller & the Sing Along Gang - Holiday Sing-Along with Mitch was one of the first CDs we purchased for our future basket.

I'm sure that Mitch will continue to live on in a Guns & Roses, Lady Gaga, etc. generation.

Swim Season: Blogging on Location

I couldn't resist the opportunity to blog on location. Two weeks ago I received my new work laptop computer. I'm getting use to toting around this portable technology. Today we are sitting outside the University's competitive level swimming pool. My computer is preset for this Internet system so I'm easily getting a wireless signal. Mimi's parks and recreation swim finals are going on. We were also here yesterday afternoon for the prelims. In the prelims, Mimi swam the backstroke, breaststroke, and the I.M. She qualified for finals in all three events and she will be in two relays today. So she will swim five events by the end of the afternoon. This is quite a feat since there have been many years with the boys and Mimi that they only swam in a relay event or not at all at conference. This is a reflection of the season she has had.

Yesterday we had a strong breeze that made the ninety degree heat bearable. The drawback to the wind was that several portable awnings blew over at times crashing into kids and onto other awnings. Luckily no one got hurt but several frames were ruined. We were also entertained by the teenage boys as they "cheered" on the teenage dance teams that walked by en mass on their way to their camp competitions. At one point we saw some of our swim boys walking out of the basketball arena across from us. One mom asked me what the boys were doing coming from the arena. I was like you've got to be kidding me. They obviously were in there watching the girls dance teams perform.

Mimi has had a fantastic swim season this year. She has had several best times throughout the season and even had two best times of the three events that she swam yesterday. She has enjoyed getting up in the mornings and heading off to the pool. She seems much more willing to push herself more, listen and apply constructive instruction from her coach and her dad. I don't offer instruction.

I just help send her off to her events on time, give hugs (love getting those wet sloppy hugs on those hot sweaty evenings), give back and shoulder rubs, and dispense the snacks. I'm also the official sunscreen police. I pack the sunscreen and end up applying it on my family. Mimi hates sunscreen and luckily she is blessed with a Mexican skin tone and typically does not burn. I am still an avid sunscreener in the hopes of preventing skin cancer. I do try to slather her with sunscreen much to her protests. I have literally held her down on the ground and put sunscreen on her until she gets too slippery and wiggles away. I always slather Doug as well (Mexican by marriage doesn't give him our skin tone), luckily I don't have to wrestle him to the ground. He has had enough sunburns to appreciate my attempts at protecting his skin. He needs more coating than most. I get the ears, neck, head, and tops of toes to name a few of the places that sunscreen is needed. Oh yea, and I photograph those swim moments.

Doug helps to get us out the door on time, makes sure our van is packed with our chairs, is the keeper of the concession stand money, and helps us stake out our base at the swim meets. He can often be found by the pool deck timing swimmers. Today he will be timing during the finals.

This swim season we have enjoyed hot weather, sometimes too hot. Last year was the year that we had those unseasonably cool evenings where we curled up in towels and wore sweatshirts. It was a struggle keeping Mimi warm. We had one swim meet called due to thunder and lightning. I was glad because we were also having quite a bit of rain. We made up that meet the next night. We then had one meet that was interrupted and delayed due to thunder and lightning. We have to go fifteen minutes without hearing thunder or seeing lightning before swimmers can re-enter the pool. At this meet we had to wait about forty-five minutes. The drawback to this is that it makes for a long night at the pool. We don't get home untill after ten pm.

This season we were fortunate to have my mom and my niece attend a swim meet. Lucky them to have their vacation coincide with one of Mimi's swim meets. We introduced my niece to the all-time favorite Illinois bake sale/concession food snack called puppy chow. I had never heard of or had puppy chow until we moved here. I swear you could have a sale with only puppy chow and make a fortune.

Our regular season ended with a 7-0 record. We'll still have some tough competition at finals so we'll see if we end up as conference champs for the 2010 season. Anyway we have our spirit wear, are tattooed up, and have Sharpied fins, bubbles, and in your face inspirational words. The favorite being "eat my bubbles." My dark blue nail polish dried up and I forgot to hunt for and buy some more this season, so there are no blue finger and toe nails.

Former Coach Brandon is leading the Shark kids in cheers to get them ready for the races!!!

It's a Happy New Day! Swim strong! Swim fast!

Cautionary Tale

Last summer I painted Mimi's room. I then began looking for new drapes that coordinated with her color scheme and had planned on making her a quilt. I kept carrying the paint swatches around in my purse and would compare the colors to different items. In December I found some aquamarine curtains at Target and they had the insulated lining. These would help with the heat and cold air as well as block the light. Energy efficient curtains!!

I bought one drape and brought it home. It matched well with the colors on her wall so I bought two more. Now I thought they were a bit plain and after spending years watching HGTV; I thought I could easily jazz them up. In January I bought a couple of yards of the inspirational cotton fabric we used to select our paint colors. This fabric could then be used as trim on the curtains and blocks for the quilt I would make.

January brought costume making for Mimi's dance competitions. Then in March it was time to coordinated the sewing of and help sew Spring Concert costumes for the children at the dance studio. Oh yea, I had a small break in February from ballet costume sewing and sewed circus costumes for the annual school circus.

So family sewing was pushed aside until the summer. In my home cleaning and purging frenzy this summer, I found the shopping bag with the drapes in the linen closet. I pulled them out and found the inspirational fabric in my rubber maid tub of quilting fabric. I then took a pause and organized my fabric tub and keepsake T-shirts that may one day be used in some quilts. At this point I realized I had some time sensitive deadlines such as a gift for a person who was moving onto another job and getting two wedding quilt tops and backings to the woman who does the machine quilt stitching. I need the quilts back well before the wedding so I can finish the last step in the process.

Finally this weekend I was ready to finish the curtain project thus getting Mimi's room one step closer to completion. I decided to place the trim the length of both sides of each curtain panel. I then determined the width of the trim and added an inch for seam allowances. I checked the length of the curtains so I'd know how long to make the trim. I needed to piece the trim as each cut strip was not long enough by itself to fit the length of the curtain panels.

Now I've seen Vern, Carter, Genevieve, etc. add pizazz to plain old curtains by adding trim to them. Actually they probably come up with the idea and materials and some assistant does the work. Whoever does it makes it seem easy. I'm here to tell you while it may be "easy" it takes a long time to finish.

I turned under both sides of the trim. Ironed the sides down, lined the trim up just so on the curtains so it would not be crooked, and then sewed. It took me two days to trim three curtain panels. I burned the tips of a few fingers ironing and bled a bit as I stabbed myself numerous times while pinning the trim. Now that I'm finished, I think they look cute but I'm not sure I couldn't have lived without the trim. I keep looking at them trying to convince myself that they were worth the work. I'm not there yet.

So here is the caution: Things may appear simple, easy, and fast in HGTV land while viewing them from the comfort of home, replicating them at home is different story. They need one of those don't try this at home unless you are an accomplished designer disclaimers at the end of each show.

I'll post pictures of the room once I hang the drapes, finished painting the shelves for the wall, and get her room cleaned again. It will be before the end of summer.

Energy Efficient Curtains

A little tidbit about energy efficient curtains. I ordered some new curtains in the fall for T-man's room. I had him choose from a couple of patterns that I thought would work well with his color scheme. The blurb in the catalog mentioned that the curtains were energy efficient. I thought that would be a bonus as T-Man's room seems to be the coldest in the house during the winter months.

When the curtains arrived I enlist T-man's help in removing the old curtains and putting up the new ones. I'm looking at the curtains and going hmmm. T-man wants to know why I'm commenting on the curtains. I tell him that they don't have a backing fabric so I'm surprised that they are considered energy efficient.

He looks at me like I'm an idiot and he is the smart one and says, "Duh mom, all curtains are energy efficient."
I'm thinking that he means that by having something covering the windows you naturally cut down on the outdoor elements penetrating beyond the window area. I say something like these are suppose to 30% more efficient.
T-man then says, " Mom curtains are 100% energy efficient. They don't use any energy."

How did I end up with such brilliant kids???

Toys and more toys

Today I bribed my daughter into cleaning up her toys in the storage room that we refer to as the cement room, as it is an unfinished portion of our basement. I tried sweet talking her and then tried to coerce her. I think she sensed my desperation and began negotiations. I ended up agreeing to a Mc Nugget meal and a Mc Flurry.

I had a brief moment of optimism as she sat her pouty self down on the concrete floor and said I could give away the rubber maid container of Barbies . I immediately placed the Barbie tub in the give away pile only to hear her say, "No, I think I still want some of them." It went downhill from there.

We organized her American Girl doll clothes and she agreed to let me pack them up and store them. I tried to get her to get rid of the Bitty Baby teeter board that never worked and she informed me that they don't make those any more and people on E-bay would buy it. I jumped on that and said, "Do you want to sell it on E-bay?" No, she was just saying that it could be sold on E-bay.

As I pulled out another tub filled with playskool toys, I sighed as I saw the classic school bus with little people. Like a wild animal my daughter sensed my weakness and said I'm absolutely not giving any of those toys away. So I was left to organized the array of toys and lovingly pack up the American Girl clothes. Mimi kept wanting to quit with the promise of finishing tomorrow. Yea, right.

She disappeared for a few minutes and again my hopes soared as I imagined that I could get rid of her "miscellaneous toys" and maybe a few stuffed animals without her knowledge. Unfortunately I was not as fast as her. Mimi came down with a chair and a book and said, " I'm not going anywhere until you're finished. Otherwise you'll sneak stuff into the garbage."

I succeeded in filling one bag of recycling garbage consisting mostly of American Girl boxes and lovely homes made from cardboard boxes and shoe boxes. Mimi relinquished one (ugly) cabbage patch baby with shoes and a dress, a hair salon kit, a little people's van, a few dress up clothes, and Ken with clothes. Even at that I saw her eyeing them and immediately called Doug to haul the things that were leaving the house out of the house.

We ended up arranging and condensing items into fewer containers. I dressed all the Barbies. Mimi wheeled around the Volkswagen and I the playskool bus. We tried on the black wings, red cape, a black witches hat with a purple feather band, and a sorcerer's hat. Mimi shimmied into a medieval style dress that was child's medium. You could loosely say that it still fit her. Hopefully this Halloween will be cold and she will need a coat over that dress. I may bring the wings and sorcerer's hat to bed tonight. We'll see if there is any magic in those accessories.

If success can be measured in that we can now get around in the storage room without fear of tripping or impaling ourselves on some toy then we were successful. Did I declutter? Not really.

As Mimi and I walked upstairs she asked me if I really thought she would get rid of anything after seeing Toy Story 3. I'm not taking that girl to any more movies.

Thinking of Salsa

In May we discovered that our sixteen year old cat Salsa was dying. T-man felt some lumps and we rushed Salsa to the vet. At the time the lumps were not cause for alarm and blood work for various cat diseases and organ functions were were fine. What was concerning was Salsa's weight loss in the past year. We returned home with Salsa with the idea that a change in food might be the only thing Salsa needed.

Little did we know that this was the beginning of the end for Salsa. As the days progressed it became evident that Salsa's hair was losing its luster and he was not his usual self. As I was in the middle of sewing dance costumes for the annual student concert, there was an abundance of tulle, netting, and tutus in various stages of costume completeness. Salsa was nowhere around. Typically Salsa could be counted on to rub up against the fabrics and even chew on them. Salsa would chase the bobbins that fell to the floor or even get on the table and pull spools of thread onto the floor to roll and and chase. It was clear that things were not well with Salsa.
(Here is Salsa in May of 2008. He managed to pull a tutu off the file cabinet while I was at work. He obviously enjoyed wearing it.) Within two weeks we were back at the vet's and it was determined that he was in kidney failure. Due to his advanced age the doctor did not think any of the possible medical interventions would give Salsa much more time or quality of life. So with a few shots to ease his pain we once again brought Salsa home. This time we knew he would die soon. Doug and I broke the news to the kids and hugged the criers. Our kids really have not known life without Sala as he was older than Mimi and a year younger than T-man. After a very long Memorial Weekend with Salsa not eating or drinking and laying listlessly we all said our good-byes to Salsa and Doug and I took Salsa back to the vet's to be put to sleep.

As with any loss little reminders were all around. We came across hidden socks and shoe strings that Salsa would tote around the house. Doug would sit and read the paper by the computer and gingerly move the chair and his feet expecting to find Salsa nestled at his feet. I had my moments when I thought I felt Salsa brush against my leg and when I thought I heard him jumping off the bed. Yet as the month has progressed the kids have slowly begun to wager the new pet requests.

Mimi after a week at Jr. Zoo Keeper Training wants a white rat. Absolutely not!!! Doug appeased her by saying one day when we get a cat, the cat and rat will not get along. So now I'm sure we'll here the "when are we going to get a cat" mantra next. My answer is no time soon. I'm at that point in my life where although cats are my favorite pet I really don't want to raise and care for one.

Today Dugger asked if he and his friend could get an iguana. I said sure if you buy it with your own money and it lives with your friend. Oh no they thought it could live in the basement at our house. Absolutely not!! Well it was either an iguana or an ostrich and they thought an iguana would be better. Dugger also thought that telling me they would name the iguana Salsa might pull at my heartstrings and sway me. Ha ha.

I was reluctant to post this in case some well meaning friend or sister decided to gift us with a pet. If you read this, do not feel sorry for us and give us a pet. I mean it. No more pets!!! I won't open the door if you have a box with holes, a bag of water with swimming critters, or an animal in your arms. Pet rocks?? Just leave them under the Japanese Maple with the other pet rocks that have moved from Mimi's room to the great outdoors.Baby Salsa in Americus, GA. We went to the pet store to buy tropical fish and got a free bag of cat food with the free kitten. We paid for the fish.