Prayers

Please pray for the family in Pennsylvania who lost 7 of their 8 young children ages 7m-11y in a tragic house fire this past week. It's too tragic for words.

Mail Order Addiction

In order to curb my mail order addition one small thing I am doing for Lent is not buying anything unnecessary (goes for stores too but I try to avoid stores). Of course with a family our size there are always exceptions like I had to buy Easter/wedding garb (BTW JCPenny is having a great sale right now and on top of it you can also apply a coupon code VIPRATES and get an additional 20-30% off, I was able to buy suits/shirts for all the boys at 1/2 price.) and then there is what to put in the Easter baskets, yes we do Easter baskets.... just not the bunny thing. Come on! It's fun! But my purpose here is not to belly ache about how I need to curb my materialism but that I just ran across an absolutely beautiful on-line store (and I'm not belly aching how I have to *wait* to order a single thing....!!)

Check this out! Catholic Embroidery! And be sure to note there are many Sacred Heart items much to my delight. They have aprons, Baby Baptismal Bibs, pre-made missal covers and ever so much more. Beautiful stuff!

Just Misc Stuff

Another farewell to our little Chliean friend, a beautiful young lady. We hope to say, "Hola" again soon......... enough.

But for now it's "AY-dee-os" as they say in True Grit.

You can dress Poppy up but you can't take her out and expect her to be dainty and delicate.

I shudder to imagine the consequences if I slept like that!

We had the thickest heaviest snowfall I can remember. It only ended up being about 5 inches or maybe a little more, hard to say but it made right up into some handy snowmen.

Everything we so very pretty.

So what did you do on Friday night? I watched Aragorn fly home from California. He had been gone all week long. I survived a week as a single mother.... the children's survived too. We're having t-shirts made....

After a while we took a break (from that tedious job) and went to Stations of the Cross. We got there a little early in case the priest needed altar boys. In about 2 minutes, Pippin closed the little booklet and said, "I'm finished!" It was a long 10 minutes til Stations began but then he actually was the best I can remember.... aside from a bit of running out of the church... in a state of forgetful-where-he-was-ish-ness. *phew* If you have Stations of the Cross locally for Lent, take advantage of this beautiful devotion.

WOOOOHOOO - we are official members of the Giant Pumpkin Growers Association. In today's mail came a newsletter and numberous packets of seeds from very big pumpkins, watermelons, gourds, squashes..... We forgot to get ours together to donate to the group, but maybe next year. So there are computer geeks and there are pumpkin geeks. I think so long as we are part of the geek squad in some fashion we'll do alright...

Yesterday we picked up a little indoor greenhouse thingie and some pots so we can start growing something or other on the large size. Last year our pumpkin podner started them on April 21st (easy date to remember....) we'll have a family forum at dinner to decide when we'll start ours....

Devastation

Our Lady of Akita, pray for us.

Remembering the many suffering people of Japan today.

I don't know about you but my first question (and I'm always good for a question!:) was, "Was the Shrine of Our Lady of Akita harmed?" I always like those stories about Catholic Missions, statues and such that survive the most amazing circumstances. I can't vouce for whether this newspaper is authenic and orthodox in all ways (I simply don't know, but I hope so!) but I enjoyed this article. Much to think about it in that is for sure. Being Lent and all, it's a good time to think about where we plan to go with our life and how we plan to get there..........

LOTR and Les Miz

Absolutely hilarious for Lord of the Rings and Les Miserables fans....





.... there are several others as well.

St. Frances of Rome

I read a most inspiring and beautiful story about St. Frances of Rome. You can read it in the Butler's Lives of the Saints or at Catholic.org ... of if you are like me, both (for fear of missing even one beautiful tid-bit of her life). It is so worth the read, esp if you are a wife and/or mother who has a will of her own..... Perhaps bring your hanky....

You know, if you really want to fall in love with those of Christ, read the Lives of the Saints. And what better time than Lent. Add it to your day. You won't be sorry.

Ash Wednesday

Meménto, homo, quia pulvis es, et in púlverem revertéris

†

Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.

†

Cheerio!

☺