blessed fall break

First of all...I think the lack of laptop is causing the fall off in my blogging.  I've had stuff all week to post, but the best vehicle is my laptop.  If I hook it up to the monitor in the computer room when no one is occupying the desktop computer, I am almost c.o.n.s.t.a.n.t.l.y interrupted by my loving family.

For the first time ever, my school system had an entire week off for Fall Break!!  And to say that we surely needed it after the circus that the first nine weeks has been, is an understatement.

My family and I took advantage of the pleasant fall weather and rented a cabin at a State Park not far from our home. 

  This was the view from our cabin, which featured a screen porch overlooking the water.

We rented a canoe one day, and one of my children humored me and we paddled around on the Inner Canoe Trail.

We saw small alligators, bunches of turtles and random birds.

In  the evening, the grill masters bar-b-q'd.

A crane flew over to check it out...

We finished off the evening with s'mores and child #2 rearranging the furniture to have a good view of the television for the Presidential debate.

Dear hubby, bless his heart, had never made s'mores before, but had seen a recipe on TV.  He had bought semi-sweet chocolate earlier in the day, which he melted in a pan and spread on the marshmallow-graham cracker combos.

It was tres bien!

We spent two nights in the swamp and then made our way home where we had time to catch up on things that seem to get left in the dust during school...Eagle Project, blogging, haircuts, attending school board meetings,  Boy Scout things.  It has been a lovely week.  Trust me when I say that the time has flown!

Happy Fall Break!

gone fishin'...

Not really.

I've never really gotten what the attraction for fishing is.  Having never actually caught a fish, I guess.

It was the homily at Mass this morning.  How we are called to "fish"...to evangelize.  And it's not really an optional thing - it's part of who and what we are.

A lot of mornings at Mass, I am there "alone".  Not really alone - I'm not the only one there - but I don't have any one with me..."unaccompanied" might be the word.  But today I sat with a couple of friends.  One falls into the "church lady friend" category and the other was a work friend.  The church lady friend and I met a few years ago at Mass at another parish, and would run into each other at various places.  Eventually we went for coffee after Mass, and a friendship has developed. (Coincidentally, we were meeting for coffee this morning after Mass.)

My work friend, I have known for quite a few years.  When she worked in my classroom several years ago, she would often mention that she had gone to Mass before school.  It is because of her that I started going to Mass - at the very least, she planted the seeds.  Or in today's theme, she threw out the net.  Her attendance at Mass has come and gone with various stages in her life.  Sometimes she will join me morning after morning for months, and then other things interfere.  Today was the first morning she had joined me in many months.  She said it was the result of my "fishing".  I told her I was there because of hers.  Weird how that all works.  A further reminder that we don't need to go into far-off mission fields to evangelize.

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It may appear that I have indeed Gone Fishin' by the scarcity of blog posts lately, but I am still right here.  It is just one of those points in my life where there is lots going on, but little worth writing about.

School has started; we are finishing our third week, and I have yet to teach kids.  I have done tons of paperwork; written and held 4 IEP meetings, made 2 different schedules, helped several people set up Promethean Boards and trouble-shoot problems, done at least 30 minutes of lunch duty every single day, given potty breaks, called for records, written 4 behavior plans and designed the charts to track them, etc.  I haven't been idle.  I just have no idea how I am going to teach AND keep up with paperwork.  When I voiced that to my supervisor...well, you know what is important to them.

One reason that I have yet to teach kids is that our school is losing 3 teachers this week.  This means that on Tuesday after Labor Day, we will have a First Day of School all over again...new schedules...the whole thing.  We are going from an 8 period day to a 7 period day.  Remediation is being cut, as is our 2-period Math class.  Not sure how we will raise our all-important test scores.  And on that note...

hope you have a great Labor Day weekend!

last week

I did not set out to take a blog break last week, but I did.  Fitting, perhaps, since I was out of school!  (Here, we still have EASTER vacation, although some of the politically correct schmucks have taken to calling it "Spring Break".)

This past week:  

I attended Mass with my friends at the Library Chapel of the burned down church down the road.  They recently broke ground on their rebuilding, but I don't think any actual rebuilding has occurred.

They were my Mass choice this week because my own pastor took some time off!

Planted some cantaloupe, watermelon and more strawberries in my garden.

I bought my boys a straight iron.  

Or is it a flat iron?  

In any case, he discovered (courtesy of his friend's 16 year old cousin) that it helped to tame this:

Looked at houses.

Bought a plane ticket to Philadelphia for the summer.

$$ Ouch! $$
But worth it to see my BFF and enjoy some peace!

Helped change the missalettes at church.

Helped my Granddad celebrate his 95th birthday!

That's him in the green shirt.

He looks good for 95, no?

Signed a contract to purchase a house!!!!

It is beautiful!  I never dreamed I would live in something this nice!

And it's surely not what I planned on doing this week!

But things came together nicely, and so far so good.

Inspections and financing stand in the way, but neither should be an issue.

(Pictures to follow when it's really, really for real!)

 And, no, it's not the property that we were praying about a month ago.

Prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet with my Ad Altare Dei group of Boy Scouts.

I don't think any of them (or my co-counselor) had ever prayed it before.

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What I did NOT do this week:

Score the stacks of progress monitoring that I brought home to deal with.

Cut the grass.

Hang out with friends.

Wake up to watch the Royal Wedding.

Care enough to see it in the zillions of replays later in the day.

See Soul Surfer.

Buy clothes.

Win the lottery!

Iron my pants for school on Monday.

Which I really should!

Just gotta say...before I go.... EIGHTEEN more days of school!!  But I'm not counting or anything!

home stretch

Here we are in the fourth week of Advent.  Someone pointed out how fortunate we are to actually get the full four weeks of Advent this year!

We got out for the Christmas Break (yes, it is still called CHRISTMAS holidays here) on Friday.  Sixteen glorious school-free days stretched ahead.  But they are flying by.  They really are the shortest days of the year!

 A couple of pictures from last Saturday:

 

Our little group of Boy Scouts celebrated Christmas with a bonfire and gumbo.  It's become an annual tradition.  The weather was great for it this year - not too cold, but cool enough that the warmth of the fire was appreciated.  The company was good, and the food - as always - was delicious.  

One thing that we don't want to become an annual tradition is what happened on Monday.  The owners of the property where the fire was held had checked the fire on Sunday, wet it down, etc.  They were a little surprised to get a call on Monday saying that their pasture was on fire!  Took six fire trucks to put it out!  But only grass was burned, so that was fortunate.  Those trees to the right in the top picture - weed trees (Chinese Tallow; they call them "Chicken Trees" here) - anyway, the property owner wanted them to burn.  Naturally, the fire went around them!  They are still standing.

Went to daily Mass Monday morning.  It was so nice to get there early since I didn't have to worry about waking anyone up and getting them out the door and on a bus.  Time to enjoy the silent presence of God.  

As we left church, one of the Sisters commented about how beautiful this tree was:  

I'm glad she noticed it.  And I just happened to have my camera with me...so I snapped a picture!  

Our priest heard confessions Monday night - first time he's ever added extra time to the confession schedule, so that was a nice treat!  I had one child who hadn't been in a few months, so we dropped by.  Other child and I had gone a couple of weeks ago.  I thought about going again - if for nothing else than the example thing - but it just wasn't calling my name.  I was glad to see that there were a handful of other sinners there.  Hopefully, our dear priest felt it was worth his while and will do it again.  Thirty minutes on Saturday afternoon and 3 mornings a week from 6:15 - 6:25 just isn't very much to pick from!

I have put together 2 photo books in the past week.  They came out nice (I hope), but I'm pretty certain that the one I finished today won't be here in time for Christmas Eve.  I have an idea of something simple I can put together so SIL will have something to open.  I also made a photo calendar for my parents.  Time consuming, but I'm always pleased with the results.  

This has been the least stressful before-Christmas period that I can ever remember.  I still have stuff to buy, and I have wrapped nothing, but it is still do-able, and I naturally wait until the last minute.  No tree has been put up yet.  We have down-sized our gift list (which has probably greatly contributed to lower stress) and I think we are going to down-size the tree, as well.  Bah-humbug? 

Stayed up late last night (partly for the eclipse).  Got up early for Mass.  Took a nap this afternoon.  Which will cause me to stay up late again.  Isn't vacation great?

Thursday, we (me and the boys) are helping with decorations at church.  We did that last year, as service for Boy Scouts, and it was fun!  Looking forward to it this year.  The boys had a great time climbing around in the attic at church, and they must not have stressed our pastor too much, because he readily accepted our offer to help this year.

Chances are I'll be blogging again between now and Christmas.  But if not - a very, Merry Christmas to you and yours.  O Come, O Come Emmanuel.  God-is-with-us!

this and that

Really... could you imagine a life any better than the one this cat has?  Sleep. Sleep.  Sleep.  In the comfy chair.  Eat.  Scratch on the door in the middle of the night.  A nice loud meow at any hour when your needs aren't being met to your standards.  Even my children don't scratch on my door in the middle of the night... Haven't in years...

About a year ago, we had dinner with our former pastor.  Kids and I went to Mass at his "new" parish and then took him to eat pizza.  (Dear husband has declined to participate. )  The conversations at these meals are always pretty wide-ranging, especially when the kids get in the act.  At some point, slingshots came up.  I had long since forgotten that part of the evening, but younger son had it tucked away in his memory bank. (Side note:  It is truly amazing what trivial things they remember - like which Happy Meal toy they got when we stopped after having pictures taken at XYZ place when they were pre-schoolers.)   Friday, something possessed him to climb up on the treehouse platform with the pruning shears (they're still up there) and clip out a nice branch with a Y shape "just like Fr. P said."  And so here is the result.  It is at winter camp with said son this week.  Allegedly for skipping rocks on the lake....

Months ago, my pastor invited me to be a Eucharistic Minister at our parish.  Said that he and Jesus would like to have me.  My first reaction was not enthusiastic acceptance (more like:  "anything but that"), but it's pretty hard to tell Jesus "no", so I accepted the invitation.  Took a little while to get my name on the schedule, and today was my first opportunity to serve.  Just a little nervous, I said a quick prayer to the Blessed Mother - Mary, this is YOUR son we're dealing with here.  Please let everything go well.  And it did!  It just really seemed to be a blur, during the time of the Mass that is most quiet and reflective.

Today was the Solemnity of Christ the King.  The last Sunday of the Liturgical Year.  Advent begins next Sunday!  Love it!

I'm looking at a week of no school!  It will fly by.  Undoubtedly there will be some things to blog!

learning with legos

Took a little trip to the outskirts of Dallas to the Lego Education Center.  We were a little disappointed in the instruction the kids got in the robotics program (the original instructor was sick), but it was a fun trip.  Always fun to do something a little different. 

 

The boys posing with some Lego creations. 

They used a computer program to show them how to construct robots from Legos.  There is also some programming involved, but I'm not sure they got that far!

We did not make these robots on the shelf, but I thought they were cute!

Nearing the end of their time, you can somewhat see what they accomplished. 

pardon and peace

Ahhhh...the first [hopefully] annual Fall Break for the local school system.  A day off with nothing to buy or attend (except for conferences for my boys later this afternoon).  So a list has been forming in my head all week of things I can do with the day.

Top of the list was confession.  After spending a good bit of my life being on the "once every few years" schedule (or worse yet, the "once a decade" schedule) for this poor, misunderstood sacrament, one of my children asked why we only went once a year.  I didn't have a good answer, because surely we can benefit from this font of mercy more than once a year.  So, I take them every three months or so, and have come to find that every month or two works pretty well for myself.  The list doesn't get too long that way. 

Things have been so busy lately, I'm not even sure I've had time to sin, much less time to think about it and ask for forgiveness.  But gradually a mental list started to form, and a day like today where I can just get up and go to Mass without worrying about getting ready for work and getting children ready for school works well for confession, which is before 6:30 Mass. 

On the way, my heart pounds, and I wonder why am I doing this?  Well, because I have never been met with anything other than kindness and encouragement, because graces that I never even expected have come from my encounters with a merciful Jesus, and because often the advice that I get from the priest there in the place of Christ is just what I need to get a handle on something that I haven't been able to do by myself.  I wonder if priests get nervous before they go to confession.  I don't imagine that I will ever be "not nervous". 

Once I am there, it is a matter of opening the door and walking in.  There, the nervousness usually falls away.  I remember at one time thinking that the priest would be shocked or horrified - borrowing from Fred Sanford...it's the big one, Elizabeth! - but they never bat an eye.  Sometimes I get advice (which is - without exception - always helpful); sometimes not.  Sometimes I have a question, and the answer usually makes things so much simpler than it was in my head.  With my current priest, the penance is always "remedial".  Never "say 2 Our Fathers and 3 Hail Mary's", but more likely to spend some time in prayer for a specific person, to perform some small act of self-denial, or once - "go enjoy the quiet before Mass and let Jesus speak to you." 

Then there is time for an Act of Contrition, and that beautiful prayer of absolution asking God to grant pardon and peace.  "Go in peace", the priest says, sometimes followed by, "have a good day."  What is the answer to that?  "Sure thing?"  "Thank you?" Sometimes, as I leave, I feel the weight of the world lifted.  Sometimes not.  It's all good.

The idea of "giving everything to God" has been bouncing around in my head.  I found myself OK with giving about 95%, so while I was there today [and had a 'captive' audience], I asked the priest about it. The 5% that we find ourselves clinging to for dear life, he says, is exactly the part that we need to give up.  Otherwise we risk it becoming an idol in and of itself.  And that in giving whatever it is over to the Lord, we do not lose anything because He perfects it and gives it back to us.  Though not always in the way that we might have thought we preferred. Our God is a God of surprises, and we shouldn't place limits on how He can work.  Is it easy?  No.  "So, prayer?" I asked.  "Yes."  A little spiritual direction and wisdom before sunrise!  And a chance to make some of the crooked lines in my life a little straighter.

I stayed for Mass, so not a bad way to start the day at all!  Can the day get any better?

Seeing that I have parent-teacher conferences for my children and half of the junior high faculty requesting a meeting between the 2 kids, a sink and more full of dishes, a son who needs to do 35 or so note cards today for a research paper, and a bathroom full of dirty clothes to wash, I'm inclined to say NOT!

Peace!