My Vocation Is Love! -St. Therese of Liseux

I am praising God today that my sweet friend has entered the Carmelite monastary. She is a living saint who is in love with God and will be a strong intercessor for us. What an incredible blessing! (Of course, I had to wait until after she entered to post this, because she is so humble, and may have scolded me for writing it!)

The past few weeks have been abundant in blessings- both obvious and masked. My husband and my father arrived from Texas safely, and I have begun my new job as Director of Religious Education at my home parish. I am excited to do God's work, but worried because of the lack of youth in the parish. We need to intercede so the youth in the area become passionately in love with Our Lord and come back to the Church.

There are many other things I would like to write, but it will need to wait until a later time. Please pray for an abundance of young souls to return to the Church. How Jesus thirsts for them!

O God, You are my God, for You I long!

Back In The Mountains...

It has been several days since Joseph and I made the trip to Vermont via airplane- and all is well! He did a wonderful job on the plane and I was blessed to have many fellow passengers (angels?) that were eager to help me with him.

I will need to write more later, but here are a few things that have transpired since we have been here:

1. I have become the cook in the house, and everyone loves my broccoli dish. It's become a frequent request.

2. We've visited Papere (my maternal grandfather) in the nursing home. There is a story which will come from this later.

3. We had a Memorial Day barbecue, which was delicious. However, during the barbecue my Mom received a phone call to let her know the block where her store is located was on fire. It's suspected that the fire was started intentionally. While her store didn't burn down, most of the inventory (bridal gowns, veils, prom dresses, summer dresses, tuxes...) were damaged by the smoke and needed to be thrown out. However, most of the bridal gowns that had been purchased and were being held for customers were saved.

4. Joseph is teething, again. But, he's returning to his schedule, which makes me happy.

There's a lot more to write about, but it will have to wait. What an eventful (and exciting) first week.

A Model Baby?

At Mass, during the Sign of Peace, the man sitting behind us said, "I just love your son's plump little feet. They're just like the feet that Baby Jesus has in the paintings from the Italian Renaissance. They're great!"

Random, but funny!

Perhaps a future career in foot modeling is in order.

Wordless Wednesday

I've Been Schooled.

Turning the faucet in the bathroom sink, I stared in disbelief as the sink coughed and sputtered. That was at 9:00 in the morning.
All day, my husband and I were checking the faucets, hoping the water would return. Instead, we were met with more coughing and sputtering.
The dishes stacked in the sink stuck together and seemed to glare at me because I had been too tired to wash them the night before.
Finally, we just decided to leave the faucet on so we would hear the glorious moment when the water would come back. And so we waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
Fred went to the store to buy water in case the water hadn't returned by nightfall.
Time passed.
We fed the baby. Joseph ate his Sweet Potatoes with such great gusto, that they not only found their way into his mouth, but into the folds of his neck, his nose, his eyes and his leg rolls.
And still, the water didn't return.
The humidity rose, and we wiped away beads of sweat.
And still, the water didn't return.
I made phone calls to find out if anyone else had their water shut off, and finally discovered that a pipe had broken in our apartment complex. I called the water company, and they said that they were waiting for the workers to call them so they could deliver the part that was needed to restore water. "It should be fixed by this evening," the employee said.
Night fell. And still, the water didn't return.
By this time, I had realized that the water probably was not going to come back for some time. The faucet was turned off and baby was put to bed (after being wiped down with baby wipes, of course). The sky darkened and the temperature cooled.
Finally, at about 11:30 P.M., I decided that it was time to go to bed. But, before I went to sleep, I decided to turn on the faucet one last time.
And fresh, cold water tinkled into the sink.

As I'm sure you can imagine, I was greatly annoyed that we had been deprived of water for an entire day. Dishes and laundry couldn't be washed, showers couldn't be taken, and meals couldn't be cooked- and the baby was irritable because he didn't get his nightly bath.
However, after my "poor me" pity party, I realized that God was trying to teach me something.
All day, I had been eagerly awaiting the water. EVERYTHING centered around the water coming back. After all, we need it to wash, cook, clean, and most importantly, to drink. I can't count the number of times I checked and double checked the faucets, making sure I had really turned on the faucet in the bathroom and didn't just imagine that I had.

And then, I heard a still, quiet voice within me say, "My child, how often are you this zealous about Me?" How often do we focus on living a Christocentric life? After all, He is the Living Water that nourishes our souls. He created us from nothing, and if He didn't think of us for even and instant, we would cease to exist. How little He is thought of daily, and yet, when He hides His Face from us, we realize how much we needed to rely on Him all along.

Lesson learned.

The Power of a Feminine Woman

I think that sometimes women, wives in particular; are oblivious to how much power that they have. A gentle smile can be comforting to a husband who has been at work all day, while a bitter remark may make him retreat into his cave, causing him to "walk on eggshells."

A woman who lashes out at her husband in a moment of stress and verbally tears him down risks emasculating him, while a woman who retreats into silence causes him to mull over all of his actions, wondering if he did something wrong- when he did it, and how he's going to make up for it.

Where then, is the balance? Why do women do these things? I think that part of the reason is because they have lost sight of their femininity, and that they don't understand how to be vulnerable anymore. In today's feminist society, vulnerability is equated with weakness, when in reality, vulnerability can be a woman's greatest strength. Not only does she fully live out her womanhood in the way God intended when she is vulnerable, but she enables her husband to embrace his masculinity, and causes him to want to become a better man, husband and father.

A feminine woman invites. She does not nag or order her husband to do something. In her softness and her sweetness she draws him to do what is good. Above all, she gives him respect.

Of course, Our Lady is the true model of femininity, and within her dwell all the virtues that we should strive to cultivate.

These are just a few of the many things I've been thinking about lately, in no particular order. What do you think are the attributes of a truly feminine woman?

Charlie Pulls a MacGyver?

Monday night I was enjoying a "lazy night" with my husband after I put Joseph to bed. He had picked up some Subway for dinner and we were talking and getting things ready for the move. It was about eleven when we realized we hadn't seen Charlie for the past three or four hours.

Actually, I'm surprised we hadn't noticed this earlier. You see, Charlie is what is known as a "vocal" cat. That's putting it nicely. If you talk to him, he will meow a reply. If he feels we're paying too much attention to the baby, he will make his feelings known. And, if he sees something (or someone) outside on what he deems is his property, he will sound the alarm.

And so, realizing that it had been abnormally quiet, we searched the apartment. He was not under our bed, or under the crib- and he hadn't found his way into any of the closets or gotten stuck in the dresser. After about forty-five minutes of searching, I heard a muffled meow, but couldn't tell where it was coming from. Finally, in a last ditch effort, my husband suggested that we look outside. Lo and behold, when I opened the front door, Charlie was there, wailing. His left ear had been blackened and his back was wet.

We still can't figure out where he was or how he escaped outside. Charlie is an indoor cat because he has been declawed. Occasionally, I'll let him out on the patio (we live in a second story apartment) and he will sun himself or bask in the breeze before coming inside. Our theory is that he probably was shut outside on the patio and we couldn't hear him, and so he made a giant leap and then walked around the complex back up to our apartment.

Or, perhaps he has secret MacGyver skills that we don't know about. I guess we'll never know!