ember days, summer days, lazy days

School is out!  It's been out for almost a week, now.  And what do I have to show for it?  I have read some....

This series is probably one of the best I have come across.  There are meditations for each day, largely based on the scripture readings for the day.  Just awesome stuff.  It is not the 2-minutes-and-done kind of quickie meditation.  This is something you take, and you spend some time reading and pondering.  It quotes heavily from St. Josemaria Escriva.  Sometimes I have found myself taking notes.  And often I have been impressed (though I shouldn't be) with how well it fits with where I am in my life right now.  So I have finished up most of this...it ended at Pentecost.  And I am actively searching for my next volume.  Being cheap on a budget, I am not willing to pay nearly $20 for a single volume.  But if I can find them on ebay for less than $5, we have a winner!  And I have debated about whether I want the paper version or the digital version.  Advantages of the digital version include the ability to increase the size of the font (getting more important with each passing day) and the ability to read in a dark church (where I sometimes find myself before school). 

Digital reading...who knew that books would be so 'last century'? 

This was a free download one day.  I think from Word Among Us.  So, I downloaded it.  An interesting read.  An easy read.  The author takes a prayer from St. Alphonsus, (I think) and unpacks it.  It's a good prayer....things that God can't refuse to give us.

This was a free download, too.  From the digital department of the local library.  Best part - no overdue fees.  Have to get a little bit of contemporary culture in, I suppose, and Stephanie Plum can sometimes make me LOL! 

My hair is getting grayer.  As this lovely photograph taken by my dear second child vividly details....

I have a pain in my side.  My friend says it's that "thorn in my side".  For a while it hurt most when I breathed deeply, so it was just a nuisance more than anything.  I really don't know how I possibly injured it, and I wasn't sure if it was a pulled muscle or what.  Exercise didn't really bother it.  Yesterday, I woke up feeling pretty darn good.  Until I grabbed the 5 gallon bucket of chlorine tablets in the back of my car....oh my....whatever had healed - just completely unhealed, and it is painful today if I so much as shift from park to reverse in my car. 

I've done some minor putting away.  We have never totally unpacked from the move.  There are still containers and boxes.  I am going with the little-bit-every-day method.  This rosary has been sitting in a ziploc in my bathroom forever.  I got it almost put back together today.  I am missing one bead and a little bit of chain. 

I cleaned my bathtub and the mirrors and a countertop!  Yay!  We (the kids and I) have made progress in the very small computer room that was just a dumping ground for paperwork of any kind.  Paper clutter is killing me.  Any suggestions?

I have swam, and I have napped, and I have walked the dog in the neighborhood.  I have called my EAP to set up an appointment for me and my dear hubby.  Nervous about that, but all shall be well and all shall be well (Julian of Norwich). 

Yesterday I had a wonderful visit with a couple from my parish.  They have helped finance our annual altar server outings, and we have worked together on some service projects.  They are the age of my parents, and the wife had surgery in February.  It has been one complication after another, and she has been pretty much housebound ever since.  Her husband invited me to visit, and I took him up on the offer.  Next time I will try to bring Holy Communion.  I have never taken communion to the homebound before, and there were just too many logistical questions to work out on short notice. 

My pastor has taken off this week, and as far as I know, his mother continues to hang on.  Last Saturday he told us that only she and God know why she is still here, and he's not sure if God even knows at this point. 

And oh yeah....before I conclude my rambling....Catholic nerd that I am....I learned something today.  From a couple of other blogs.  Ember Days.  Apparently they were around very early in the Tradition of the church....probably as a way of taking pagan days of fasting and offering sacrifice and re-orienting them to the one, true God.  After Vatican II, they kind of fell between the cracks, it seems.  Basically, they were 3 days every season of fasting and partial abstinence from meat.  They are celebrated on a Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.  In the winter, they follow the Feast of St. Lucy (Dec 13), in the Spring, they follow Ash Wednesday (so they get kind of swallowed up by Lent).  Summer Ember Days follow Pentecost (that's us right now!) and the Fall celebration is the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday in the week after the Exaltation of the Cross (Sept 14).  The old way of remembering this was "Lucy, Ashes, Dove, Cross".   Another blog suggested that we be rebels and reclaim that part of our liturgical calendar.  Fast.  Pray.   Jesus, himself, sometimes took the opportunity to fast and pray.  Why not us? 

And so there, you have your Catholic Trivia of the day.  Have a great week!