Our guest

A few weeks ago our friends K & S came over for dinner. With them they brought an extra guest. S’s mom has a traveling picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe that she graciously sent to stay with us for a while.

OLG has always been near and dear to my heart. It is the depiction of Mary that speaks most to me. I also have had a few coincidences with her as well. I started this blog on her feast day (completely unintentional but I love it) and one year she was my patron saint.

I haven’t been taking advantage of her presence nearly enough. She sits on the fire place mantel, looking pretty but largely ignored. And, that must change. It is hardly a good way to treat a guest.

So, I offer this to you. If you have an intention for which you would like me to pray, either leave it in the comments or drop me an email. (donna1164 at gmail dot com) I will place it in a bowl at her feet and promise to include it in daily prayer to her.

AMDG

Perfect Weekend

I wrote this two weeks ago and finally got around to publishing it.  I guess I too am suffering from that don't post unless it's perfect syndrome.  If that's the case, it ain't never gonna happen!

I have often said that the perfect weekend would be three days. One would be to do chores and errands, one to visit with family and friends and one day to just plain relax. I got lucky this past weekend and had it one better, a four day weekend. Lovely!

On Thursday we celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. Fifteen years! It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long and sometimes it feels like it’s been longer. Not in a bad way. But in a good way. Like life always included Himself. Anything before doesn’t count. But it did because it made us who we are and made us ready for each other.

Wow, I digress. Not where I was going with this.  

Anyways, back to the perfect weekend. Thursday we went to an art show at a local historic mansion. The estate originally was built by the founder of one of the larger tire manufacturers in the country and was later deeded over as a park of sorts. Oh to have a bottomless bag of money! There were so many pretty, pretty things for sale.
  
Friday we went for a drive down to Amish country and had a leisurely and delicious lunch at an inn that is the most un-Amish of places in the area. It’s tucked back in some rolling hills among a thick stand of woods. We had planned on walking the trails afterwards but the rain put a damper on that. That’s okay, we were rewarded with delicate kitty kisses from the local calico instead.

Saturday was the chore and errand day. Half a bushel of beets waited to be processed and canned. We’ll be eating a lot of beets this winter.  

The icing on the weekend, though, came on Sunday morning. Late Saturday we made last minute plans with Sis to go to mass with them. Sis and BIL live about 45 minutes away and the last time we were at their church was for Sara’s baptism more than a year ago.  

Sis often tells me that Sara can be a bit of a handful in church. She’s fifteen months old, that’s what she does. She wants to move and see and do. But from the Gospel on she settled nicely in Uncle Himself’s arms and was a perfect little angel. At the sign of peace she held out her arms to me and I had her to the end.  

And then best part of the weekend happened. I got to receive the Eucharist with my Goddaughter in my arms. How perfect is that!


AMDG!

Bagels and bad poetry

That shave your legs entry has been sitting on top of the post pile entirely too long. It's about time it goes away, or at least gets pushed aside.

Yesterday on the way to work I stopped for a bag of bagels for my IT compatriots. Just because. And, feeling goofy, I sent out the following email to everyone.

 

I was amazed at the silliness it brought out in people.  Both the bagels and the poor poem had people chatting all day.  Hmm?  Do you think we need to get out more?

I received this thank you from my manager.  I think it's a poem?

     Thank you Donna for the bad poetry
     Morning bagels are awesome
     Especially when they’re free!
 
The VP even added his own poem, bad as it was.

     Roses are red
     Violets are blue
     I'm having a bagel
     How about you?

What do you do "Just because"?


AMDG

Why you should always shave your legs

After a gloomy day yesterday, this morning dawned bright and beautiful.  The fog off the ponds and in the valley I drive through was just stunning.  A few times the glare of the sun made it hard to see, but, all-in-all, it was a nice drive into work.

That changed when I got there.  

I parked in the garage attached to our building as I always do.  The indoor parking was filled so I ended up on the roof.  I grabbed my laptop bag and lunch and headed toward the stairs inside.  As I walking an SUV came around the corner, out of the shadows, and right into me!

I ended up sprawled flat on my back in the middle of the garage roof.  I spewed out a number of very bad words at the driver until I realized who it was, a co-worker of the nicest kind.  He was shaking like a leaf at what he had done.  He never saw me as he came out of the dark inside to the bright glare outside.

I was able to get up, with his help, and we headed inside.  As the morning progressed so did my aches and pains.  Talking to my boss and the HR VP, they felt it best I go to the ER to get checked out.  By the time I drove myself there I could hardly walk. 

I've got to tell you, those hospital gowns leave a lot to be desired!  It's hard to be modest in one.  And, when the doc came in to examine me she tested my legs, feet and ankles for motion and sensitivity.  All I could think of while she was doing that was I really should have shaved me legs this morning!

I went home with a couple of scripts and the forewarning that I will be hurting for a couple of days, but ultimately will be just fine.

So, when you remember the advice of your mother to always wear clean underwear because you never know when you'll land in the hospital, remember to add shaving your legs to that as well!


AMDG

My turn

I’ve heard about.

I’ve seen it happen.
 
I’ve even done it.

Heck, there’s even a movie about it.

But it has never happened to me. Until yesterday. On the way into work. At 7:15 am by someone in a cream colored Ford SUV.

On Fridays I like to leave for work early. Get in early, get out early, and get started on the weekend, you guessed it, early. About halfway along the ride in is a Mickey D’s where I sometimes stop for a quick breakfast. I pulled into an empty queue and, after a bit of a delay, gave my order.

When I pulled around to the first drive-thru window to pay, the cashier looked at me and smiled. “This is your lucky day” she said. Huh? She smiled again and told me that the person ahead of me had paid for my order. No! Really? “Yep! Have a great day!”

It was four dollars and seventy-three cents. Not a whole lot in the scheme of things. But, that act of kindness made my day.

I wish I could tell the driver of the SUV what her $4.73 bought.

Lots of smiling.

A grateful heart.

Kinder thoughts about people around me. Especially that one.

You see, all week I seemed to meet up with every idiot on the road. It got to the point that I would just assume that everyone on the road was an idiot.

Now I know that’s not true.

It’s my turn to Pay it Forward.


AMDG

Silly, silly girl

I was looking for post I did last year where I listed everything that I had canned when I got side-tracked and started reading a bunch of other posts as well. In typical Donna fashion I was lamenting the process of looking for a new position. I went through an odd assortment of interviews last summer while on the hunt that left me feeling put out and inconvenienced. There were phone interviews and in-person ones as well as the one on Skype. I had mentioned in a couple of posts that one interview lasted four hours and one that was later in the evening.

As I was reading these posts I realized that both of the “inconvenient” interviews led me to this job, the one I hold now, the one I like so much. It's the one where the people with whom I work are good and the company treats us well.

Why did I think it was going to be easy?  As if it should be?  The jobs I had where the interviewing was an easy or quick process ended up being jobs I was so very, very glad to leave. 

Silly girl! 

AMDG

Caught in the act. . .

. . . of pretending to be organized!

Every Monday morning I meet with my manager to go over what I did the week prior and what’s on my agenda for this week. I keep a list of projects I am working on and usually just update it and use that for our discussion.  

At the same time I do that list I also do a personal one. What are some of the things I’d like to get done this week? Many of the things on the list just carry over from week to week. Either those items are things that need to be done regularly or, in most cases, I just haven’t gotten to them. But, ultimately, for me, if I don’t write it down I don’t remember it. I’ve often said, I have a mind like a steel sieve!

But anyways, back to getting caught. I just create my personal to do list in Word, nothing fancy, but I like to add color, either reflecting the weather or liturgical seasons. The color printer in the office is across the hall, so before picking up my printout I stopped and got a cup of coffee.

When I finally made it to the printer there was someone reading my list. Yikes! Not that there is anything personal or embarrassing on it. She looks at me and asks “Just who is this organized? You?”  

Not really, but it certainly looks good!



AMDG

Saint GKC?

As I mentioned earlier, last weekend we went to the GK Chesterton conference that was held at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts. The long drive was richly rewarded. We caught up with old friends, made new ones, and saturated our brains with much more than they could possibly hope to comprehend.

There is so much to tell you about the weekend, but since the best bit of news came early on, Friday night at the end of Dale Ahlquist’s opening talk, I guess that’s the best place to start.

For quite a while now, probably ten plus years, the Chesterton Society has been advocating for the sainthood of Chesterton. Apparently the cause needs to be taken up by the home diocese of the person in question. Prior bishops in Northampton did not find reason enough to get involved in this process. That seems to have changed. Dale made this announcement:

"Martin Thompson says that Bishop Peter Doyle 'has given me permission to report that the Bishop of Northampton is sympathetic to our wishes and is seeking a suitable cleric to begin an investigation into the potential for opening a cause for Chesterton.'"
This little nudge may have been just what was needed:

Ahlquist cited Pope Francis’ interest in Chesterton as possibly influencing the bishop of Beaconsfield’s recent move for an investigation.

“One of the reasons that especially motivated him is the fact that His Holiness, Pope Francis, expressed support for Chesterton’s cause when he was the archbishop of Buenos Aires,” stated Ahlquist.

A March 10 letter to Martin Thompson, a leader of an English G.K. Chesterton group, from Miguel Angel Espeche Gil, an Argentine ambassador who heads a Chesterton group in Argentina, noted that the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, “encourages us in our aspiration to see the initiation of the cause of Chesterton to the altars.” **

**Read more: here 
To say that those attending the conference were pleased with this news is an understatement. I think we all read GKC for a variety of reasons, but the common thread among those is that he speaks the Truth across the ages. What he wrote a century ago is just as true today.

Many Catholic converts cite GKC as the reason for their entering the church. One of the speakers at the conference, Joseph Pearce, is one such person. Pearce has an amazing story that is just one example of Chesterton’s influence. He was raised in a staunchly anti-Catholic family, was an agnostic neo-fascist as a teen and was imprisoned twice by the time he reached his early twenties. During this time he began reading Chesterton primarily for his views on politics and economics, but eventually found himself reading Chesterton’s arguments on behalf of the Catholic Church and his defense of orthodox Christianity.

 

PRAYER FOR THE INTERCESSION OF G.K. CHESTERTON

 

God our Father,

You filled the life of your servant Gilbert Keith 

Chesterton with a sense of wonder and joy, and gave

him a faith which was the foundation of his ceaseless

work, a charity towards all men, particularly his

opponents, and a hop which sprang from his lifelong

gratitude for the gift of human life.

May his innocence and his laughter, his constancy in

fighting for the Christian faith in a world losing belief,

his lifelong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and

his love for all men, especially the poor, bring

cheerfulness to those in despair, conviction and warmth

to lukewarm believers and the knowledge of God to

those without faith.

We beg you to grant the favors we ask through his

intercession, [and especially for …] so that his holiness

may be recognized by all and the Church may proclaim

him Blessed.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen

AMDG

3 hours in CT

This past weekend we headed up to Worchester, Massachusetts for the GK Chesterton conference. Not wanting the bother of airports we decided to drive. According to Google Maps it was a 621 mile, nine and a half hour trip. So, we figured, with food and rest breaks, we should make it in about ten hours. Not exactly my favorite thing to do, being in a car for that long, but the destination made it worthwhile.

I am always amazed when I travel to see just how vast our country is. There is so much beautiful, undeveloped land. Driving through Pennsylvania was spectacular. Rolling hills, lush forests and steep stone mountainsides surrounded the highways. Himself was probably getting tired of me pointing out one gorgeous vista after another, but he humored me anyways.  

The small bit of New York state that we drove through provided us with more beautiful sights. The most breathtaking was the Hudson River valley.  
 
And then we hit Connecticut. At rush hour. What should have been a ninety minute leg of the trip turned into a three hour one! But, driving slowly through Hartford gave us great views of beautiful gold-domed buildings we would have barely been able to glimpse had we been going at full speed. Is Harford the insurance capital of the world? Every direction we looked was another, very large building with some corporate designation as a seller of insurance.

What was funny, at least to me, was once we got out of the 5-mile-per-hour-traffic-jam and onto open roads the traffic moved at a dizzying pace. I was going 70 in a 65 zone and looked like I was standing still! It was like each of the drivers was going “Weeeee…. I’m making up for lost time!!!!”

We breathed a sigh of relief when we crossed over into Massachusetts. We were almost there. But, no, not really. Unfortunately, I programed the wrong address into the GPS. Yep, that's right. Instead of arriving at Assumption College we were at the now closed Worcester Insane Asylum.  

When we finally did arrive at the conference, tired, hungry, and more than a little agitated, we ran into Dale Ahlquist. He asked how our trip was. Himself replied “Well, we spent a day in Connecticut this afternoon!”

"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered;
an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.”
– GKC, All Things Considered, 1908

AMDG

7 in 7: The simple things

Sis and BIL decided that they needed an "adult" night away, the first they've had since Sara was born, and asked if we would want to watch her overnight.  Huh?  Like they have to ask!

 

Just a little over a year old, she seems to find almost everything interesting.  She'll spend a half hour just playing with and studying a plastic water bottle.  Watching the water move inside the bottle and the crinkle sounds it makes seems to intrigue her.

 

Uncle brought her outside and there they played with rocks in the water for what seemed like a long time to me.  They were both quite content and happy picking one rock up after another, studying them and then tossing them back in.

 

Sara was a nice reminder to me that things don't have to be complicated or complex to be interesting.  Sometimes slowing down and paying attention to the simple things can be quite refreshing!

AMDG