It's a Date!

With my DVR that is!

I LOVE this lady & can't wait to see how her Saturday Night Live gig goes.

It's a fabulous gift to be able to make people laugh like she does...enjoy this promo from hulu.com :)

A Night Spent with...

Friends = Mental clarity, Worries swept aside, Knowing they will always have my back if I need it & Feeling like myself again!

Thanks Girls!!! :)

Supermarket Singing Star?

Over the past several months, we have been doing most of our grocery shopping together as a family. For the most part, it works out okay-it allows us to split up so that we can find things a bit quicker & it allows us each to take our time if we need to for some reason. When this happens & I am the one with Luke in the cart & Scott gets out of eyeshot, then every once in a while Luke starts singing...

First you need a little back story, for quite a long time now (at least a year), Luke & I have had a little game that we play every so often. Basically, he hides under the island in the kitchen & I walk around pretending that I don't know where he is while singing...

"Where, oh where, could my little Lukey be? Oh, where, oh where can he be? With his hair so short & his eyes so brown. Oh, where, oh where can he be?"
(to the tune of "Where, oh where, has my little dog gone?" just in case you didn't realize it :)

Yes, just like with words-I like to make up my own words to songs too ;)

Anyway, back to the grocery store, Scott is out of eyesight, & Luke starts singing...

"Where, oh where, has my daddy gone? Oh, where, oh where can he be? With his hair so short & his tail so long. Oh, where, oh where can he be?"

Scott does not, in fact, have a tail, but Luke's version of this song sure does bring out a few chuckles from me & the store employees :)

Happy Blogoversary to Me! :)

Last year at this time, I could not believe that I had been doing this for a whole year already & now here it has become TWO years! If you'd like to take a look back, here is my very first post & here is last year's post.

The last two years have been full of many ups & downs & when I look back it is so hard to believe just how much life has changed over the past two years & just how much it has stayed the same as well. It has been an amazing journey & experience! It has definitely not always been the easiest journey, but even during the roughest times over these past two years-I have always been glad to have had this blog to turn to-to pour my heart/words out onto the screen. I have also been blessed to have had several of you kind enough to leave us words of encouragement, kindness, laughter, joy, sadness, etc based on whatever I may have written on any given day. This blog has been a wonderful experience & I am looking forward to seeing what this next year has in store for us!

Thank you for joining me on this blogging journey! :)

#2 Being Catholic

"Being Catholic" is one of the biggest parts of my childhood/memories/adulthood. I was born & raised a Catholic in a very strong, rural Catholic community. I always saw my parents participating in/helping out at church. Receiving our sacraments was a big deal that called for celebration. Many of my childhood friends were not only people whom I went to school with but also whom I went to church with as well (plus we all lived within a country mile or two of each other, which was a convenient bike riding distance :) I have great memories of being able to "explore" church while mom & other ladies were cleaning or while mom was doing things in the office. When we could get the chance to be the "reader" at the real microphone in church while they were doing those things-it was awesome! We loved "playing church" at home with smarties/vanilla wafers & having "mass" with real (the old ones or leftovers) missalettes from church. I remember attending Catholic youth activities once I hit junior high, attempting to be an organist because mom wanted me to try it, being a reader for a short time, trying to sing in the choir & bringing up gifts with my family. We always attended every Holy Day mass & even "had" to go on First Fridays occasionally (even though us kids could never understand why there was church on a Friday! :) sometimes we even had to go TWICE on the same weekend! One of my mom's most famous lines was always "It never hurts you to go twice!"-I ask you-how in the world do you argue with that! Needless to say, being catholic became a huge part of my identity-not just a group that I belonged to for the sake of belonging.

For a long time, being Catholic to me meant that things were either "black or white." I left very little room for "gray" areas & admittedly, was very quick to judge people/things as either right or wrong-no maybe's here! This worked wonderfully until people I knew started falling into the "wrong" category come high school/college/adulthood-then what? Drop the friendships? Worry about their lives "doomed to hell"? Miss out on terrific memories because they might 'mess' me up? Well now, that doesn't sound very nice...

I can definitely say that my religious nature has been tested again & again over the past several years, especially this past year-partially due to a few books that I read (that unexpectedly caused me to start asking myself lots of questions about what is right or wrong) & partially due to the losses we have faced over the last year. I have asked myself lots of questions about my faith & what I believe/don't believe (poor Scott has been on the receiving end of several of these discussions. :) I have questioned my viewpoints on many different topics as well. And I have come out the other end (although not completely unscathed) a bit different than I did going into it. Gone is the "blind" faith in whatever my church says is right or wrong & in its place is a more questioning nature-not so much of whether it is right or wrong, but whether or not it makes me a better person & whether it seems like the "loving" decision. I truly believe "God is Love" and that is what He wants us all to be as well.

So going into the next 30 years, "Being Catholic" is still one of my most important identities, but it will probably be from a little bit different viewpoint than that of most of the first 30 years. One thing that hasn't changed though is my belief in the importance of my child(ren) seeing me/us participating in the Mass & with Church activities (the "fun" stuff as well as those that can cause many a headache :) so that, hopefully, they will grow to see that it doesn't just have to be something that we "do on Sundays", but that being Catholic is a way of life & a way of living. And attending Sunday/Holy Day Masses regularly is just the cornerstone of that for me (& yes, that means sometimes even having to go twice on the same weekend because "it never hurt anyone!" :)

"Quotastic" Thursday!

(I'm fond of making up 'new' words so I hope you enjoy that one up there in the title. ;) I'm considering making this a recurring theme, since there are always so many quotes that touch me & so little time to remember them or write them all down-enjoy!)

"Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day." ~ Author Unknown

This quote stares me in the face every single day from the mantle of our fireplace. It appeals to my positive nature. Although, I may sound like a "Negative Nelly" at times (my apologies to any readers named Nelly :) and those who know me in real life know that I can do my own fair share of complaining and then some! When push comes to shove, though, my natural tendency is to say "It will get better" and then to try to find a way to make it better (even if that means complaining to someone who I know will be sympathetic! ;)
This quote inspires me to find something good about even my crummiest days. It also forces me to take a look at myself when I'm feeling down and to think of happier things and times, so that I can appreciate all that I am and all that I have in that moment!
I'm so glad to have this quote in front of me every single day to help me remember what is truly important in my life!

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Terrible! Just terrible! I'm a poor poet & I know it, but it sure is fun to try! :)

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