A Lazy Day

Do you have those days where you just can't get moving?  It's not so much a physically tired thing as a mentally tired thing.  Today I have an "I don't want to be stressed about life" attitude.  I'll probably regret it later in the day when the house is a wreck and I need to get everyone to help clean it up, so my hard-working husband thinks I've been busy all day.  But I think I just spilled the beans since he reads my blog!

Often, these days turn out to be the busiest, most productive days because I'm so mentally disorganized that I can do only 2 things:  Pray and Clean.

Cleaning and getting half-finished projects finished and put away give me the feeling that I'm in control of my life.

Praying is what I do when I know I'm not in control and I don't know what else to do.  Lately, I find myself turning to Our Blessed Mother Mary more and more for help and guidance.

How do you handle Those Days?

In a Routine!

I'm really so happy to be back in a daily routine--- I operate so much better with structure to my day!  We're into our third week of school, even though some people just started and others haven't started at all yet.  I guess it's my personality.  I'm a  lazy Phlegmatic, frequently Melancholic, and a wishy-washy Choleric.  That doesn't sound very cheerful, does it?  But my husband seems to like me, and so do a few other people.  ;-)

It's the lazy side of me that loves summer vacation---who doesn't love relaxing in the A/C with a book, or relaxing by the side of the pool with a cold beverage and a book, or going on vacations, playing in the waves and sleeping on the beach?  I think I used to get to enjoy those things when my kids were little and summer rolled around.  Oh, honey, while you're slaving away at the office, I'll be at the pool chasing the kids around.  Don't envy me. ;-)  But it's not like that anymore with summertime activities and swim team.  The "schedule," if it exists, is chaotic at best.

The phlegmatic side of me really wants to be using all that free time during the summer to get some big projects accomplished, while my choleric-ness is happy to boss the kids around engage my young helpers in the tasks.  Somehow, the summer passes, the essential things get done, but not very cheerfully.  Ahem...Hello, Madame Melancholic.

Now that school, drama rehearsals, piano lessons, homeschool co-op, Boy Scouts,  and American Heritage Girls are in full swing, I can relax.  Not with bon-bons and a book, except on rare days, but I can function better because I know what the days hold.  Some days are pretty crazy, and others flow pretty smoothly because I don't have back-to-back appointments, or worse, have to bi-locate, but the basic structure is there.

Part of the problem with summer is that everyone is doing their own thing.  We all fall in to that trap of doing nothing, except for my dear husband who continues his routine of long days at the office without fail, and one of the things that falls by the wayside is family prayer time.  We're fairly sporadic about our evening prayer during the summer, and I'm sad to say we almost never pray on vacations.

In my heart, I know that there is a certain structure that would solve all of this:  prayer.  It's really past time (ha!) for me to set my alarm on my phone to remind me to prayers.  All these years with the kids I've tried to get in the habit of praying the Angelus, or the Divine Mercy chaplet, daily, but have failed. I tend to structure my days around school, appointments, and dinner, but I'm pretty sure there is a better way.

For me, I know that making my home like the proverbial Domestic Monastery would help.  What about you?

Do you structure your prayer life?  What makes your days run smoothly?  I'd love to know what tools others use to get through the days!

7 Quick Takes

---1---

Why does Friday feel like a Day Off?  When Friday rolls around, I am so ready for the week to be over---I want to sit and surf the 'net all morning, maybe blog my Quick Takes, and then spend the rest of the day decluttering.  

---2---

Alas...none of that is possible....except maybe spending too much time surfing and blogging when I should be waking the kids and starting school.  Our homeschool co-op starts today which is always a nightmare  a lot of fun for the kids.  It's a lot of work for moms on Friday afternoons when we're all ready to start the weekend with a glass of wine, but that's what Self-Sacrifice is all about, right?

---3---

The need for decluttering around here is reaching epic proportions.  I've started the process, but not gotten very far----only far enough so as to bring a lot of clutter into the library and leave it for the dog to chew on.  Having the dog chew on books and tapes that are destined for Goodwill is far preferable to his chewing on the leg of my dining chair, for which crime I would cheerfully wring his furry neck.

---4---

Okay, Dog Lovers, I didn't hurt him, even though I wanted to.  I put him in time-out and sprayed everything with Bitter Apple.  So now he just chews on other things.

---5---

Despite the fact that he has really good chewy toys that he makes good use of, I don't know why this naughty chewing has started after months of NOT chewing on anything!  But he has this funny habit of stealing socks and napkins from the laundry, and he'll bring it to the room I'm in and start whining.  Just stand in the doorway and whimper, or lie in another room with it and whimper until I come take it away.  What's up with that?

---6---

So, Pip came downstairs this morning, all squint-eyed, which I thought was because it was bright and he had just opened his eyes.  But no, he was squinting because his super-long eyelashes were tangled up!  It's disgusting, amiright?  Why do guys, who couldn't care less, get the gorgeous eyelashes and the women don't?

---7---

Speaking of Pip----we signed him up for a triathlon on Sunday since he's been wanting to do one.  We thought it would be a couple of hours on Saturday morning, but no, it's Sunday.  But we have to go to the bike drop-off/Pep Rally Saturday afternoon/evening (which means no Vigil Mass), and then check in between 6 & 7 a.m. Sunday for a race that begins at 9:50.  By the time he's all done, we'll have missed all the Mass opportunities except for the teen Mass Sunday evening.  .  On the bright side, I'll probably have lots of waiting around time for knitting!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Join the fun at Jen's for more 7 Quick Takes!

Knitting and Knitting Along

~Joining Ginny for the Yarn Along today.  Stop by to see what everyone else is knitting and reading!~

This is the crumpled up wad of my Citron scarf/chapel veil.   The color isn't very citrus-y, but it was the perfect project for this black merino I've had for ages.  If it works as a veil after blocking, I'll have my very own chapel veil for when the Spirit or occasion moves me.  I have only 7 rows left to go of the ruffle, and what looks like barely enough yarn.  I hate the tension at the end of a project when you're not sure you're going to make it!  And the tension is bound to last a while since there are over 500 tiny stitches in each row.

There's a pile of books going nowhere on my nightstand, but I did pick up a book last week and managed to finish it in just a few days.  It was Sarah's Key.  The Holocaust always fascinated me as a child, throughout high school and college, so I really "enjoyed" this book.

It was beautifully told with a history lesson that neither my husband nor I had learned.  Coincidentally, he learned about the Vel d'Hiv roundup the same day I did, from a different source!  I wasn't a fan of the marital issues and the long-drawn-out wrap up of relationships at the end of the novel, but overall it was an excellent read.  She seems to have done her research thoroughly.

The day after I finished it, we stumbled across the movie version on Netflix which I watched with the kids.  Fortunately, the director cut a lot of the relationship stuff I couldn't stand out of the movie!  It wasn't too horrific for Meg and Pip (10 & 13) to see, but it was very educational and we've had several conversations about WWII since then.

I'd love to know if anyone else read this book or saw the movie---or ever learned about it in school!

The Truth About St. Therese

I finally finished reading The Truth About St. Therese: An Unflinching Look at Lisieux, the Little Flower, and the Little Way.  The author, Henri Gheon, was not attracted to the Little Flower, initially.  He found her cult too sickly sweet for his taste, and he set out to look deeper into what was so attractive about her.

I've always said that Therese's autobiography, The Story of a Soul, written at the request of her sister Pauline who was prioress at the time, influenced my life the more than any other.   It did, but I think it was in that sickly sweet way that Gheon detested so much.  I was not Catholic at the time, and I was only just beginning to grasp the bare essentials of what a saint was, and that they are alive in Christ, while we are still asleep, so it is not surprising that I would have comprehended her writing in the most basic terms.   I remember a discussion with my husband about saints, probably Therese, when I said it was too bad they didn't know they had been canonized.   He laughed, and said, "Oh, they know!"  It's funny, but that was such a revelation to me!

I talked about her all the time, and I thought I understood her Little Way to sainthood, so I chose her for my patron saint, but now I see how little I truly knew about her!  St. Therese was no mealy-mouthed, pudding-faced little girl.  She was a beast!  (And I sure hope she's laughing about that high form of praise from my teenagers' vocabulary.)

Oh, sure we can all do little things with great love, which is the same thing that St. Teresa of Calcutta said, but have you ever noticed how hard it is to do those things?  I think many of us are used to making sacrifices that we don't even think about:  taking the smallest serving at dinner when there's not quite enough for the crowd, taking the burnt piece, doing one more load of laundry for someone who needs their clothes cleaned, etc.  But then there are those little things we are called to do:  Oh, hey, I'll make this small sacrifice for so-and-so today!  But then, oh, that's too small, I can't really be called to do such a little thing.

St. Therese, on the other hand, trained herself from childhood to do every. little. thing. for her playmate Jesus.   Everyone who knows about St. Therese knows the stories of how she went out of her way to show love to the Carmelite sister that she really couldn't stand, so much so that the sister really felt that Therese had an unusual affection for her.  Or she moved closer to the sister who was splashing too much on laundry day, so she would get splashed more, not less.  Or when she coughed up blood for the first time as she was going to bed, she refused to re-light her candle to see what it was and waited for morning.   She developed amazing self-control for one so young who was living the dark night of the soul for most of her 9 years in the convent, even to the extent of forgoing the society of her beloved sisters.

In this book, it suddenly struck me how heroic her virtues really were.  They were not just "little ways" to sanctity, but an all-encompassing, ongoing passion for the Lord, and a total subjugation of her own will.  Gheon says that she was rarely warm during her years in Carmel because it was so cold, except during the hottest days of summer, and she refused to go near the fire in the common room to get warm! That seems like such a little thing, (ha!) doesn't it?  Surely God doesn't want us to be constantly cold?  Can't we perform our duties better if we are warm?   Even on her deathbed when she broke down emotionally and requested prayers for her pain, she immediately offered those prayers for others who were suffering, instead of keeping them for herself.

Her faith told her that she had done well, for she said, before dying, that "God will have to do whatever I want in Heaven because I have never followed my own will on earth!"  She wanted everything from God, and she gave absolutely everything she had in exchange for it.  Upon reflection, St. Therese's Little Way of sainthood is anything but little, which is probably why she is a Doctor of the Church.  

Do you have a devotion to St. Therese?  Do you find it easy or hard to practice her Little Way?

Quick Quick Takes!

---1---

I'm taking 15 minutes to do my 7 Quick Takes today, and then I need to wake the kids so we can start our busy day.  Okay Go!

---2---

Cheated, didn't I?  ;-)  

I kind of wanted to blog about it, but I also kind of didn't want to---but I made another Consecration to Mary on Wednesday, the Solemnity of the Assumption.  After following the 33 Days to Morning Glory, we went to Mass in the morning, and I came home to type out the consecration prayer.  I knelt before the crucifix and a statue of the Blessed Virgin and made my consecration.  Signed my paper and went about my day.  It was beautiful and peaceful.  No "magic" happened, but that doesn't mean that nothing changed.  I hoped maybe I'd suddenly become an inspirational blogger, but apparently I sort of lost the desire to blog (at least this week).

---3---

I also had a special lunch with a new friend on Wednesday, which was a nice, peaceful interlude in the day.  I left the kids for a couple of hours to read literature for school.  They loved it.  The only thing that would have made it better is if I had brought them food afterward.

---4---

Tomorrow is the Big Day when my first nestling leaves the nest for good.  I know she'll be only 30 minutes away, but that's not really what it's about, is it?  It's not the distance; it's the finality.

---5---

This week is Crunch time for American Heritage Girls.  It seems like it hasn't stopped all summer, but now we have a recruitment night coming up, followed quickly by the big Kickoff, which is going to be a bigger deal than we've ever done before.  So, sticking to a 15 minute blog post is about all I should be doing!

---6---

I'm cantoring at a funeral this afternoon.  I haven't sung at a funeral in ages, and I was a little surprised to get the call from our old parish.  I can only guess that the family wanted traditional hymns with the organ instead of the guitar.  The Music Director isn't available for weekday funerals because he has another job.

---7---

Gotta run.  Say a prayer for my cantoring and for my baby daughter moving out, please.  It's going to be really strangely quiet around the dinner table with just 5 of us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Join the fun at Jen's for more 7 Quick Takes!

A Giant Eclair for Clare

I saw a couple of different recommendations in the blogosphere for using eclairs to celebrate the feast of St. Clare, but we weren't home that day to do anything for Katie.  

We did take her out for pizza, which is Italian, as St. Clare was.  So that counts, right?  We went to Big Pie in the Sky as seen on Man v. Food for it's Carnivore Challenge.  Everyone had to point out, as we drove in, "where the guy threw up" against the wall.  Great dining conversation.

Since Sunday was Katie's last Living at Home Sunday Dinner, I decided to make a giant eclair for her. I could have made separate ones, but someone suggested doing it in a bundt pan to save time, which was a great suggestion.

It's flat because I had to turn it upside down for the filling to stay in!

Oh, man, it was awesome.  I don't think I've ever made eclairs before, though I remember my mom making them a few times.  We'll definitely have to try again and make individual ones.  It does have flour, which I try to avoid, but it's not much, and it definitely has very little sugar.

Yum, yum, yum.

Career Planning

I belong to a private FB group for my 30th high school reunion which is coming up this fall.  I'm not very active there because I'm kinda busy here at home, but someone posted a clipping from an old school newspaper the other day that was very interesting.  It was a list of seniors with their response to the question:  What do you want to be when you grow up?

As I scrolled down the list, not knowing if my name would be on the incomplete list, I tried to remember what I might have said.  I fully expected it to say Lawyer since I remember discussing the same question in English class that year.  Evidently, I only wanted to marry a Lawyer since, when I found my name, it said, "A Mommy."

I was honestly floored that I said such a thing, not because it wasn't true, but because it seems like such a lame thing to say to another senior in high school where we are all trying desperately to be cool.  At least, I was! I certainly never thought that I meant it times 6, either.  I can only think that the reporter who asked me must have been a good friend that I wouldn't have felt judged by.

I've been a mom for over 23 years now, if you count the months of that first pregnancy---and I definitely do---and this career of mine has shaped me in more ways than I would have thought possible.  No, we don't have to go into the physical shaping, or reshaping, that has occurred.  Suffice it to say that I'm no longer the willowy 21 year-old that I was on my wedding day!

I have learned over and over to put my own needs last, until I crashed and saw that I needed to put my needs a little higher up on the list.  I've seen how much easier it becomes to do without the things I think I need or want when the children have more urgent needs. (Easier, not easy)  Or when the needs and goals of the family as a whole dictate what we do.

Most importantly, I've learned that I don't do any of this mothering on my own.  I've been lucky enough to have an awesome husband who comes from an awesome family and has had a pretty good handle on  how a family runs.  I've also discovered along the way that the Almighty and his Blessed Mother are pretty indispensable while parenting:  someone to tell all my troubles to, someone to ask beg help from, someone to emulate.

I'm going to be leaning on Them a lot more in the coming days (and years) as the first one leaves the nest this week, and we begin the first full week of our homeschool year.  How can it be that at one time I had 6 children at home, with the oldest in 8th grade and no end to it in sight, and now I have only 2 students, and 4 years left of my homeschooling career?

I can't help but wonder what career God has planned for me next!

Birthday Quick Takes

---1---

It's Friday, so I'm letting the kids sleep a little longer than usual since I'm going to make them do lots of schoolwork.  We're in the habit of having Easy Day on Fridays, but that is going to change.  It will be easy-er, but not as simple as just Religion and Math.  I know, sleeping longer doesn't really seem to be the right way to get more work out of them, but we'll see.

---2---

I'm also going to try to have a little Friday Fun per Sarah Reinhard's suggestion.  We might play in the water at home, or try to get to the pool.  That is, if the weather cooperates....it looks a bit Mostly Cloudly out there!

---3---

We have 2 successful schooldays under our collective belts, I really wish I knew the secret to keeping everyone calm and motivated.  After 17 years, I still haven't discovered it.  What are your tips?

---4---

I have figured out the secret to keeping their bedrooms clean:  bribery.  After one month (or slightly more) they'll get a treat like a movie.  My Little Princess is desperately trying to save and earn the money for a pretty, pink, Schwinn with fenders and a basket!  She has been trying to pull weeds and wash cars for the neighbors.  I'm thrilled with her industriousness.  I think I'll capitalize on it, and the success of the Bedroom Bribery, to get her to read more.  

She has to read a lot for school, but she NEVER reads for fun---she turns on the Disney channel or Toddlers and Tiaras (yuk).  So, I'm resorting to paying her a small sum for every 30 minutes that she reads.  A real book, not a picture book, which is what she has a tendency to pick out at the library.  She is an excellent reader, if you ask her to read aloud, she's very fluent and doesn't hesitate over words, so I don't think it's a problem of reading being too hard.

---5---

Here's a picture of The Chair, which is sitting in my library, waiting for my daughter to take it to her new apartment.  Don't judge.  It's covered.  It's removable and washable.  And it looks slightly better than a sheet thrown over it and tucked in.  Emphasis on "Slightly".

---6---

These are my new napkins that I made out of cotton jersey.  They're super simple 18x18 unhemmed squares with a contrasting stripe hand-stitched on a la Alabama Chanin.  They're loosely based on the design from this book.  We used them at dinner the other night, and the jersey is so much more pleasant to wipe your mouth with than any of the other napkins we have.  I'll definitely be making more as I find jersey remnants at the store.  The thread used in the stitching is super-strong button-craft thread, so it shouldn't be breaking and coming off!

---7---

Reading for school in their jammies.  Pip has a lot of challenging reading this year--we're doing Boomerang and Arrow from BraveWriter.com,  this year, for the first time.  Meg started rather reluctantly, see #4, but she admitted in a whisper last night that "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is a good book! Don't tell Pippo."  It's just a guess, but I expect that all the paid reading she does will be the rest of the HP series!  Don't worry, HP Haters:  I have plenty of other excellent books and series for her to delve into, too!  And they don't include witches.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Join the fun at Jen's for more 7 Quick Takes!

Back to School Daybook

FOR TODAY August 8, 2012

Outside my window...
Dark.  More than that, I don't know yet.  Up at 5 a.m.

I am thinking...
About all the things on the To Do list, and trying to remember a few.  Last night, I was assisting at a Boy Scouts Board of Review, and all kinds of AHG things that I had forgotten or should do kept popping into my head.  Since I didn't have paper to write them down at the time, I have to try to remember them.

I am thankful...
For the return of structure, today!

From the learning room  kitchen table...
Somehow, by the grace of God, and with the assistance of my pupils, I managed to clear out all their books from last year and gather most of the books for the new year.  I did this yesterday.  Talk about waiting until the last minute, but you can do that when you're starting your 18th year of homeschooling and, chances are, you have all the books you need in the basement.  Or a substitute.  We are meeting a friend after lunch today to borrow a couple of her books.  I've got all their grades gathered together from my handy notebook, and I can write report cards for last year.

In the kitchen...
Evidently, my 16 yo is going Paleo.  I'm not sure what inspired him after my months of nagging and lecturing  (although it might have been the Olympics), but now I'm more motivated to keep my diet clean.  It's also a lot more work to make sure he has a good breakfast and lunch to take to school with him.

I am wearing...
Denim shorts and a tank because I thought I'd be walking the dog.  I guess I'll go downstairs and do some exercise as soon as Dh and Tom leave for work and school.

I am knitting...
Still working on that Citron scarf.  Knitting is not high on the priority list these days, but I did manage to whip up a dozen napkins in the past 24 hours which I can't wait to share with you.  If I have time.

I am going...
To start school, to the park, and to start picking up Tom after school again.

I am wondering...
What the UPS man is bringing me for my birthday!  There are 7 emails in the "Orders" smart mailbox that I have diligently avoided looking at.  They come into my email on the phone, too, but if I see Amazon pop up, I immediately hand it to one of my kids to delete.

I am reading...
The Truth About St. Therese----I really love this book.  I'm not sure why; I don't think it's that scholarly, but it is a slightly different take on the Little Flower.

A review copy of Sarah Reinhardt's upcoming book.  I really need to spend more time on that!

I was searching the house yesterday for a copy of C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, which I'm sure we should have a copy of having purchased it at least 12 years ago.  What I found, instead, were dozens of really awesome books that I want to read, that I want the kids to read, and that I can't believe some of the kids haven't ever read.  There are soooo many books in this house!

I am hoping...
For a good school day.  Lots of good school days would be nice, with a patient mom who has seen it all before and shouldn't be surprised when a child struggles with a concept or just doesn't want to work.

Around the house...
I'm sure you will be shocked to hear that it is still cluttered!  I never had any time to de-clutter this summer.   The best I can hope for is that a daily routine will help me find 15 minutes here and there to do some work.  And to top it off, the detritus from The Chairand a couple of other things (while the sewing machine was out) are still creating clutter.

One of my favorite things...
Dropping off stuff at the thrift store to get it out of my house!

A few plans for the rest of the week...
AHG Leadership Team meeting. Birthday. :-)  Trivia Night.

Hosted by The Simple Woman's Daybook

Perfectly Organized Chaos

And school starts tomorrow!

The Chair

Last week was a rough week.  Really rough. From my safe vantage point of Monday Morning, I wonder what was so difficult about it, and why I couldn't handle it.

Nothing truly dreadful happened all week....Unless you count being pulled in many different directions by kids who need to "go here" and "do that"....  Or The Slipcover from H. E. Double Hockeysticks which went wrong every. single. time. I worked on it.  I might get a few inches of a good seam, but the very next seam would have to be ripped out.   Aaargh.....Or there was my son going back to college yesterday....Or the 5th anniversary of Mom's death yesterday.  And I don't count any of those as particularly dreadful, but the combination was a veritable Perfect Storm.

My sweet husband did what he could to make me feel better, offering me choices of goodies or getaways to make me happy, but nothing held any appeal, because I knew that it was all in my head, and I just needed to get through it.  Get past it, and it would be better.  You know that saying, "If God brings you to it, He'll bring you through it"?  It sounds kind of trite, especially when you see it on FB, but in the darkness that pervaded last week, that was all I could hold on to.

All I could do last week was pray.  On my worst day, Thursday, I begged extra prayers from friends.  Friday was better, and Saturday was better still.  I think I was back to normal yesterday, even though you'd expect that day to have been the hardest.

The Chair and the Lord were with me all week.  It seems as if all the difficulties I had emotionally were reflected in the problems I had with the slipcover.  I would work on it a little every day, dreading it, but facing it with renewed determination every day, only to make very little progress, yet feel utterly defeated.  I went for extra-long walks with the dog, so I could pray the rosary or the Liturgy of the Hours, or just listen to L'Angelus, which usually cheers me up, all the while just knowing that God was the only true constant.  That He was with me and He was all I needed.  He wouldn't sew the slipcover for me, or give me back my mother, or stop my children from growing up, but He would be there at my side.

The Chair, with its frustrating slipcover, is finally finished.  It's not perfect; it's not beautiful, but it's done.  Like last week.  And right there on the sidebar =====>
is the prayer from St. Teresa of Avila which should be my theme for the year.
God is enough.

Olympic Quick Takes

---1---

I hear the Olympics are on.  In the middle of the day, I usually see some dull sport like table tennis or handball on the television.  At night, there's usually something more exciting on, but by the time it gets really good, I'm ready to go to bed.  I don't know why NBC has to show everything so late!  Don't they know that kids start school next week and they can't be staying up until midnight every night?

---2---

One of my kids is excited that they'll be in Rio next time, because that's "practically our same time zone, and we'll get to see everything live!"  He'll also be 17.5, and able to stay up to watch everything, or he'll have figured out how to watch it all online by then!  

Do you watch online or stay up late to see the primetime viewing?

  

---3---

I'm evidently living under some kind of rock where the Olympics are concerned.  At this point I'm not even sure if Michael Phelps became THE MOST DECORATED OLYMPIAN EVER!   My 19 year old pops in from the basement in the evenings and says, during my 15 minutes of Olympic viewing time, "Do you want to know who wins?"  He finds out all the scoop first thing when he wakes up at noon.  I don't know if he actually watches any of it, or just spoils it.

---4---

I'm glad I didn't opt to participate in the Ravelympics (oh wait, is that the name we're not supposed to use now???) this year, because I'm getting about 1 row knitted per week.  That won't win me any medals except in the Who Can Make Yarn Stash Last the Longest? category.

---5---

The great test of skill and fortitude that I'm undergoing these days is sewing a slipcover for Katie's chair.  I should win a gold medal for something, there.  Wrestling, probably.  I'm learning some great moves wrestling with this ginormous denim opponent!  Thank goodness it's not a sofa.   

---6---

I have found some interesting entertainment to occupy my brain while I wrestle with the devil  slipcover, I'm watching Milton Friedman's 1980 PBS series "Free to Choose".  It's very educational.  I wish I could have watched these when I was in college instead of trying to wade through a huge, boring textbook that taught me very little.  Econ 101 was one of my worst classes, ever.

---7---

Since it's Friday, I think I'll take a break from the Denim Behemoth this morning and go see if I can catch some replays of Great Olympic Moments.  Have a great weekend!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Join the fun at Jen's for more 7 Quick Takes!

26 Years of PHFR

~Capturing the contentment of everyday life~

~Every Thursday with Like Mother, Like Daughter~

{pretty}

{happy}

That's us:  Pretty happy.  Then and now, after 26 years of marriage.  We were young and clueless back then.  I was clueless, anyway; he may have had more clue than I!  I can hardly believe so much time has passed, but if you look at our offspring, maybe it's not so hard to believe.  Life is not always easy, but somehow, with the grace of God, and we struggle along learning to love each other anew and better than before.  He still has the cutest smile, and I love it when he gives me "that look" that lets me know how much he loves me.  I am so blessed to have him!

{funny}

When we ring the bell for family prayers at the end of the day, Gus often brings his blankey with him and plops down on the floor in the middle of the family.

{real}

One of the increasingly rare, precious times when we are all together.  Can you see all 6 of our precious gifts?  We had to go out to Chili's just to celebrate being together for 24 hours.