Novena to St. Joseph for Nick

Please join me in this novena to St. Joseph for Nick who was diagnosed with cancer.


O Saint Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God, I place in you all my interests and desires. O Saint Joseph, assist me by your powerful intercession and obtain for me from your Divine Son all spiritual blessings through Jesus Christ, Our Lord; so that having engaged here below your heavenly power, I may offer my thanksgiving and homage to the most loving of Fathers. O Saint Joseph, I never weary contemplating you and Jesus asleep in your arms; I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Press Him in my name and kiss His fine head for me, and ask Him to return the Kiss when I draw my dying breath. Amen. O Saint Joseph, hear my prayers and obtain my petitions. O Saint Joseph, pray for me. (Mention your intention)

Happy Birthday Aragorn and Pippin

Guess who got new boots and is entirely thrilled with them.

We had a hail storm... this is the pile of hail that was rolling off the roof.

Aragorn and Pippin celebrated their birthday this past week... yes, indeedy they share the day. I made the ugliest cupcakes ever, but they tasted good and I succeeded in finally making a decent batch of frosting.

However the chocolate pie, one of Aragorn's favorites, was very yummy.

Poppy says that ugly cupcakes are very tastey.

Hm.... we'll keep working on your handwriting!

Sam's giant pumkins and things.

We finally pulled out a sewing machine we bought about a year ago so we could make some curtains for the shelves under the art table. Great little sweing machine. It's a Baby Lock Maria. Just a basic machine, very easy to use, quiet and smooth running.... I guess we forgot to take a picture of the adorable fabric. Maybe one of these days.

Hm... there is indeed something wrong with this picture.

This week for the cooking challenge we made Buddy's chocolate chip cookies. These are realllllly good chocolate chip cookies, however we left out the cinnamon. You can get the recipe here.

I'm not sure where you go on a date when you actually go *out* but we very often go to Menards (after lunch). I know, we are so hopelessly romantic. This time when we went we *literally* saw a leperchaun. Unfortunately I took this with my phone and wanted to pretend I wasn't taking his picture so it is blurry. Yes, that is a *green* kilt and a cap!

Feast of the Annunciation

Luke 1:26-38: And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.

And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. Who having heard, was troubled at his saying and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be.

And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and shalt bring forth a son: and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father: and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end.And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man?

And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: Because no word shall be impossible with God.

And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

Feast of St. Dismas

St. Dismas was the good theif.... the one who "stole" Heaven. When I was in Rome there was a slab from the cross on which he was crucified.

HAPPY FEAST OF ST. JOSEPH

Although I didn't post timely about St. Joseph, he was adequately honored on his Feast Day yesterday. We started the day with our Children's Choir singing for a Low Mass with Music (TLM). They did a lovely job. My favorite was the singing of the Litany of St. Joseph after Mass was over but before the Recessional Hymn.


Afterwards we had a St. Joseph's Altar buffet. The tradition of St. Joseph's Altars began in Sicily after a major drought. Their crops were destroyed and people were starving. They prayed to St. Joseph who honored their prayers. To thank him they set up St. Joseph's Altars (Tables) to share their abundance. The first time I saw this was in our former parish in Illinois. They set up absolutely brilliantly beautiful St. Joseph's Altars over the years! Since our children's choir was singing a friend of mine suggested we set one up.

Ours was one of those cases of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes meals that started out as what I described would be like a "continental breakfast" but grew into a full sized brunch. We have very generous people around here who like to celebrate and eat!

To my delight some even brought the fancy pretty breads.

Of all pictures to decide to go side-ways. This statue I found at a St. Vincent's store just before we were going to get married so I gave it to Aragorn for his birthday that year. It is all wood and very lovely.

Due to the amount of food we needed... I kid you not... 4 more long buffet tables. And here I thought we had set up a large table by putting 2 together.

The lamb bread was delicious and aren't those heart cookies adorable? Must be melted candies inside, they were like stained glass windows.

A Sacred Heart bread

One of our wonderful priests. And because you never know these days, the priest is the one in the cassock (hahaha)

We had quite a crowd. We would guess somewhere between 75 and 100 people.

I am not sure why Bilbo took great delight in this. He bit off the end of a hollow chocolate egg and kept sticking it on his nose. chuckle

This is the St. Joseph statue in the church where we sang. This and the statue of Our Lady were added by one of our priests last year.

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abrupt change of topic

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One of our kitties had a tragedy. This one was missing for 5 or 6 days when the boys heard her meowing in the dumpster. They found she had a string tightly wrapped around here leg. We have been tending to it very carefully but are waiting to see if we will have a 3 or 4 legged kittie :(

This week's picture of Poppy and the stolen bread.

This week I received a present in the mail, much to my delight. A lovely bracelet for St. Patrick's Day. THANK YOU!!!

The geese are laying eggs and of all things we have good friends who think these are delicacies.

BOYS

Boys do sit down once and a while.

Poor Poppy. She has decided that this was the time of her life in which she should misbehave in church. So we've been making sure she sits still during Rosary.

It's a very difficult time of life.... as you can see... and as she would like to to see.

The dog very kindly brought us a muskrat.

I would like to know if we have porcupine here as I was sure I saw one go across the road the other day. It looks like they don't come this far "south". And no I didn't imagine it, I stopped the car and watched it walk across the road. But perhaps it was just a muskrat with a bad hair day.... it looked to me like quills.

Picture taken from space . com.

We had it all planned out to go see the Supermoon. We even had a clear night for it. But it just didn't happen. *snap*

Please sir.... I want some... more....

MORE?!

This week for my SILs cooking challenge we made the Rockin' Rice Pudding. I don't care for zest so we skipped the orange zest and I didn't have a vanilla bean so I added in 1/4 tsp of Vanilla Extract at the very end instead. Well, if the truth be known, I also didn't have the Arborio Rice so I used regular White Rice. This was very easy to make and even when neglected several times during the "frequently stir" part, it still cooked up beautifully. And it tasted absolutely delicious! This is a keeper!

Prayer Request

Please pray for my friend, Kay's husband, Nick who just found out that he has cancer and will have surgery on April 7th. I'll start a novena to St. Joseph on March 30th to end on April 7th so please check back and join me. They are a lovely couple, full of life and well.. if you want to have some fun... go sit by them!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I cannot think of St. Patrick's Day without thinking of my grandma who was quite devoted to St. Patrick and passed away on his feast day. May she rest in Peace.

Interestingly there used to be thousands of Sequences for various saints in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to which there are only about 5 or 6 that were not eliminated due to abuse before the Council of Trent, people started to invent their own. I suppose these innovative sequences that got out of hand would have been something like Bilbo's description of himself to Ol' Smaug. So Holy Mother Church limited the Sequences to very special Feasts. But my partner in crime with our Children's Choir has a true gift for finding music. She was able to track down the old Sequence to St. Patrick. If you would like the music (Gregorian Chant of course) email me. But here are the words in English, click on the links for the stories that are ever so fascinating. The stories are taken from the Life and Acts of St. Patrick by Bishop Jocelin. There are many more than what I highlighted below from the Sequence. You can also find it in PDFormat HERE.

Sequence of St. Patrick

Joyful is the light of this day's feast, whereon Patrick, the man of God, ascended to Heaven!

When yet in the early dawn of life, the holy youth devoutely venerated the cross of Christ.

He made the sign of the Cross on the ground; a fount gushed forth upon the spot, and with its waters he gave sight to one born blind.

He turned water into honey, and by it restored his nurse to health.

He was led captive by pirates, and was made keeper of swine; but the Saint found a piece of glittering gold, and with it bought his freedom.

For three days did Satan harass him with bodily injuries; but Elias healed him, and gave him back his strength.

His soul was vigorous in grace, and like Moses, he restrained his body from vices by fasting.

He ascends a high mountain, and there he fasts. He throws ice upon a fire, and it burns as though it were wood.

He puts himself under the care and teaching of Germanus, and studies under him the maxims of the Gospel.

Pope Celestine, by a divine inspiration, sends him to teach salvation to the people of Hibernia.

The thief, that had stolen a goat, was discovered by its bleating; and he and his family were punished with a severe scourge.

A man had covered himself with a cloth, and asked to be restored to health. He was first punished with real death, and was then restored to life by Patrick's prayer. and the man's repentence HERE

He drew together, by his prayer, all venomous reptiles, and drove them from Hibernia's shore.

At times, he saw the heavens opened; and as he gazed above, he saw the Lord Jesus.

Our Father passed out of this world, under the guidance of Christ; and, glorious by his miracles, he was taken to the courts of Heavenly LIght.

Merciully grant unto us, O good Jesus! by his intercession, that we may enter into joy. Amen.

As my friend and I were discussing, St. Patrick is a wonderful saint for our time given all the *ccult and s*tanism going on.

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This is a lovely little ditty that we also sang with our Children's Choir for funsies. If you would like a copy of the music email me.

Clonmacnoise, an old Irish Melody

Hail, glorious St. Patrick, dear saint of our isle,

On us thy poor children bestow a sweet smile;

And now thou art high in the mansions above,

On Erin's *** green valleys look down in thy love.

Hail, glorious St. Patrick! Thy words were once strong

Against Satan's wiles and an infidel throng;

Not less is thy might where in Heaven thou art;

Oh, come to our aid, in our battle take part.

In the war against sin, in the fight for the Faith,

Dear saint, may thy children resist unto death;

May their strength be in meekness, in penance, in prayer,

Their banner the Cross which they glory to bear.

Thy people, now exiles on many a shore,

Shall love and revere thee 'til time be no more;

An the fire thou hast kindled shall ever burn bright,

Its warmth undiminished, undying its light.

Ever bless and defend the sweet land of our birth,

Where the shamrock still blooms as when thou wert on earth,

And our hearts shall yet burn, wheresoever we roam,

For God and Saint Patrick, and our native home.

*** Erin go braugh = Irish for = Ireland forever

I always wondered that so I looked it up *pat=pat*

Just Stuff

Poppy can smell sugar through a sealed package in a sealed tupperware in a sealed and locked safe. I didn't even know we had any Reeses Pieces in the house but apparently *someone* found some.

Oh, she wasn't entirely overjoyed or anything like that.

FINALLY, my dream came true and after months of complaining about the 4 geese and a duck that like to wander about the property leaving a gross trail as close to the house as possible, they were finally going to a new home over yonder by the pond.

Geese.... pond.... get it?

Well, these geese didn't get it.

They came back!!! Leaving their trail all the while. Later the boys found a nest of eggs. Such... dedicated.... geese... My suggestion was to move the nest and everything.... silly me.

Now, don't get me wrong, I loved watching the geese wandering around in the field just not close to the house and definitely not on the door stoop.

ARGH! Poppy!

We ain't had nuttin' but maggotty bread for 3 stinkin' days.

You simply can't turn around without Poppy into or onto something.... without Poppy tearing and shredding something.... without Poppy.........

Mommy! Take a pitser of me standing on my chair!

The fun baking challege we had joined came to an unexpected halt due to unforeseen circumstances but it was great fun while it lasted. But perhaps it's better it ended before Lent!!! That said my SIL started a cooking challenge which we decided to try out. We made all 3 of the choices for the cooking challege for this week. The Fettucini Alfredo was alright, pretty bland but I didn't have the fancy kind of cheese. I have a much better (but sadly misplaced) recipe that calls for Paremsan, Romano as well as white pepper and garlic so very flavorful. The Roasted Asparagas was excellent, very tasty. I didn't have the time to make the Buddy Bread Crumbs so I used Italian Bread Crumbs with Parmesan Cheese. I'm not a fan of chocolate dipped fruits but the children loved the tuxedo strawberries. I like my strawberries unadulterated!