credit cards

So am I the only odd one that has been taught that you never leave a balance on a credit card? But that you pay off what you spend, even if the minimum due is $0.00. It just seems that more and more the people I talk to or listen to seem to let the debt accumulate. I guess that my dad raised me that you don't do that, that you don't spend more than what you have. And that's probably why I freak out if Keith is late on a payment for this or that, and why I check up on all of the finances periodically.

Maybe I am a control freak, but yeah, I can't live outside of my means, it just doesn't make sense. If money is gonna be tight, well then I start buying less, or the cheapest version of something. That last one bugs Keith because he tells me that I sometimes end up spending more in the long run because the cheaper thing breaks sooner. It is a valid point some of the time. Usually he only does this with computer parts and electronics, but I still kind of have to laugh at our disagreement here. I usually concede and let him justify his choice. At least he has a good reason behind choosing this or that. Though as for pedometers, the more expensive, well reviewed one that he got me lasted less than a year, and the free one is still kicking. Hmm, maybe its just me and my ability to break things, like vacuums and such. Roomba is still kicking, though he is only 2 months old.

Ok enough rambling of finances and such. I should work more.
Love.

Ash Wednesday

Something humorous. Since it's Ash Wednesday, many of us Catholics go around with ashes on our foreheads. In response, I have gotten "Did you fall on your forehead?"or "Did you run into something?" or "Did your forehead come in contact with a newspaper?" or the simple no response at all. No one was like "oh you went to Ash Wednesday Mass."

As it is the start of lent what are your Lenten sacrifices?

For me I will be abstaining from ice cream, and Facebook and Twitter. And I will be going to at least one daily mass a week, and then last but not least I will be working on the one thing that I have been confessing almost every time at confession (but this one is a secret, because I don't want the person to know that I am doing it, and that I want it to become a habit in a good way.)

one more CHL song to cry to...

change this to baby Edmund and you have my life, and not in a car crash. But I made a saint, and now I have another prayer warrior fighting for me in Heaven.

"The Eye of the Storm" by Cool Hand Luke

"I got the call at 2am, it awoke me from my sleep
I didn’t recognize the voice, it was nervous and quite deep
He said that she was taken fast, she probably never knew
Maybe he was comforting me, or maybe it was true

The last time that I saw her she was walking out the door
I didn’t think to hug her, it was just a trip to the store
Did I say I love you? Did she know it when she died?
When she had her last glance at me, did I look her in the eye?

Though I don’t see, I still believe
There’s a purpose
You’re the eye of the storm
We fall asleep but we believe
You will wake us
And Your bride will come home

I took her to a restaurant, she spilled her drink on me
In anger I belittled her, I never said I was sorry
And now it’s those memories that haunt me in my sleep
How often we love someone, but we’re just to proud to speak

Though I don’t see, I still believe
There’s a purpose
You’re the eye of the storm
We fall asleep but we believe
You will wake us
And Your bride will come home

When I was at the funeral
I tried hard not to cry
I didn’t want to grieve like the world
As though the lost had died

She’s my sleeping beauty
For now she’s resting in peace
But one day, Redeemer, Redeemer
You’ll wake her from her sleep

I did alright till I went in her room
I buckled under the load
Tomorrow if the rain stops
we’ll put a cross on the side of the road

God is good all the time
Even when little girls die "

from the band that will be on the playlist in Heaven

Cool Hand Luke "The Mirror" (especially like the daughter of a King part.)

"I looked into the mirror
Didn’t know what I would see
But it was still just me
But it was still just me
With all these different images
Of who they think is me
I don’t know which one to be
And my eyes look like the sea

Oh, what fearful times are these
I know that You don’t promise this, but please
Let me feel you now
Because I know that You are here
Whispering in my ear
And looking in the mirror

She woke up this morning
Didn’t know who she should be
So she turned on the TV
So she could escape for free
And all this time You’ve been right here
But she just couldn’t see
There is more than just a dream
She’s the daughter of a King

Oh, what fearful times are these
I know that You don’t promise this, but please
Let her feel you now
Because I know that You’re there
Hearing every prayer
And returning her stare

I’ve been so many people to so many people
But I just want to be who You want me to be

Oh, what fearful times are these
O, Lord, you don't promise this but please
Let me feel you now
Because I know that You are here
Whispering in my ear
And looking in the mirror "

along that rollercoaster...

"This is as quiet as it gets
hush down now
go to sleep
we were once perfect me and you
will never leave this room

H H H Hush
you color my eyes red
your loves not live its dead
this letters written itself inside out again
when rivers turn to roads and lovers become trends

This is the calming before the storm
this absolution is always incomplete
its always bittersweet

H H H Hush
you color my eyes red
your loves not live its dead
this letters written itself inside out again
when rivers turn to roads and lovers become trends
H H H Hush this is where it ends

I wont make a sound so you don't wake
don't wake don't wake you don't wake you don't wake

Hush
you color my eyes red
your loves not live its dead
this letters written itself inside out again
when rivers turn to roads and lovers become trends
H H H Hush this is where it ends
you color my eyes red
your loves not live its dead
this letters written itself inside out again
when rivers turn to roads and lovers become trends
H H H Hush this is where it ends
This is where it ends"

blah

Can I stop riding this emotional rollercoaster, please?

I can't really take it anymore.

quoting another blogger

From George Weigel - With regards to the Pope meeting with Nancy Pelosi, trying to reason with her and many other pro-choice Catholics of the past in politics. "It is a “requirement of the natural moral law” — that is, the moral truths we can know by thinking about what is right and what is wrong— to defend the inviolability of innocent human life. You don’t have to believe in papal primacy to know that; you don’t have do believe in seven sacraments, or the episcopal structure of the Church, or the divinity of Christ, to know that. You don’t even have to believe in God to know that. You only have to be a morally serious human being, willing to work through a moral argument — which, of course, means being the kind of person who understands that moral truth cannot be reduced to questions of feminist political correctness or partisan political advantage..."

"just remember, what's right for me might be not right for you..."

As much as I love the Rocket Summer, this lyric is totally off in the sense that it conveys moral relativism. Something that has worked itself into all aspects of our society that we live in. Especially in the taboo subjects of sex and babies. Reflecting on what I have read, wrote and listened to in the last week or three I am trying to formulate this all together. We do live in a society where we have to be tolerant of wrongs, yet not of truth and right because they are so hard to achieve. We live in a society where convenience takes precedence over what is right to do. Where youth are so propagandized by what society throws at them as standards and so they don't think that they themselves can stand up for truth, because it infringes on the rights of another. We live in a society where we think our decisions don't affect another, but they do. We Christians have totally fallen into so many relativist arguments, many don't see anything wrong with gay marriage, or with sex before marriage, or hormonal birth control (when on average it causes 4 early abortions a year if a woman is of normal fertility!), or pornography instead saying its healthy, or masturbation (check out the portrayal of Christians in the Secret Life of an american teenager), or that being open to children in marriage is negotiable, or in the hard cases abortion becomes an option, or divorce and remarriage is just fine even if you entered into a covenant. The list could go on. Most times, when I encounter those that are living out these moral relativisms its hard for me to approach them about it, because I myself have been indoctrinated with false tolerance, or just am fearful of what they will think of me. It hasn't been till recently that I started fighting back, but I have a long, long way to go. I want to change this mentality that we can't fight against the relativism. We need to because to do so is to follow Jesus strong and true instead of letting things go by the wayside. The youth leader at the parish that we volunteer with made an excellent comment about how we teach them about Jesus but that we shouldn't be afraid to discipline them. Thus we shouldn't be afraid to do so. I think at times we shy away because of what the media has made us Christians out to be. I mean what do you see on TV or read in the news but about the extremists and those that fall. So granted we want to be humble, but we need to fight these battles and discuss the hard things. Not just tax reform, sports or the latest video game. Our pastors are even afraid to get across these messages and when one of them does they get a lot of slack from those in leadership positions. We need not be afraid if we have faith to stand up for truth, because after all it is truth, truth established by Jesus with the first church and recorded in the Bible, and its still there brought down through the ages through the church and defended by the church. We just need to saddle up and stop being afraid. The people are starving for it even if they don't think they are, psychologically they have it embedded that they have to settle, or that that is the way it has to be because I can't expect more, or I don't have the self control to do so, or I can't sacrifice that, or that its normal to do so. Love doesn't mean being a pushover, it means having the best interest of the other person in hand, even if its not what they want to hear because they want convenience or for things not to change, or not have to feel pain or to practice self-control. So affirm those who stand up for truth especially in the hard times when no one else will so that we don't feel alone. Challenge the cultural norm of relativism, Jesus charges you to do so, every time you leave the mass.

the number one lesson to learn from God

this is nice, I found it on F&F Live.

Patience, hard thing’ by G. M. Hopkins a Anglican convert to Catholicism.

PATIENCE, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray,
But bid for, Patience is! Patience who asks
Wants war, wants wounds; weary his times, his tasks;
To do without, take tosses, and obey.

Rare patience roots in these, and, these away,
Nowhere. Natural heart’s ivy, Patience masks
Our ruins of wrecked past purpose. There she basks
Purple eyes and seas of liquid leaves all day.

We hear our hearts grate on themselves: it kills
To bruise them dearer. Yet the rebellious wills
Of us we do bid God bend to him even so.

And where is he who more and more distils
Delicious kindness?—He is patient. Patience fills
His crisp combs, and that comes those ways we know.

peet's

a new reason to like Peet's

They recycle the cup sleeves( the cardboard that prevents your hands from getting burnt). And not that they have a recycle bin that is to be put in with the other recycle. But they reuse them right there, I think that's an even better solution. So when the sleeves get really used, then they can recycle them with the normal recycle. But I think its cool that they have found a way to reduce cost! and help the environment!

interesting...

Both interesting perspectives, for some reason I really like the second one. I think I have actually heard about this video being done, but never saw it before.

so many thoughts...

After going to the March less than two weeks ago. I realize that our biggest opposition for ending abortion is not those that are so anti-life, but the ones that don't think they can speak out for it, or those that think it is necessary for someone else. I wonder how we can change these minds? Because if we did, it would have tremendous effects. I know that I used to think that it was necessary in the tough cases, and now with more research have learned that it is not. So I'm gonna pray more on this.