Household chores

This is just a simple post to ask about household chores.  Being that I am at home more now than I have ever been in the last 20 some odd years of my life, I have become more on top of cleaning.  And its come to my attention that there are certain chores that I feel must be kept up with daily for me not to feel like I have a messy house.  Are there certain chores that are like this for you?

Mine consist currently of 1.) sweeping the kitchen floor and side entry way, and 2.) cleaning the kitchen counters of all dishes and crumbs, whether it be by dishwasher or hand.

I am sure as my family gets larger laundry might crop up on here as well as daily bathroom cleaning.  But hopefully the little ones will get big enough to chip in eventually.

why?

It's odd.  I shouldn't compare ... but I do.  I shouldn't get angry ... but I do. Why is this?  Is it my faulty human nature to do so?  Has it just moved on from comparing the way I look to all the other girls to now comparing what my child does to all the other similar aged babies?  It's weird.  Because I shouldn't, and yet I do.  I do even though I know its fruitless. I know I am much better off loving my baby the way he is, instead of comparing.  Maybe this is why Facebook or other forms of bragging media are a bad idea sometimes.  It makes us not love our babies, but instead make us want to beat out the other one, or force our kid to do more than he's capable of doing, or to question our working parenting techniques.

So what's the solution.  Should I shut myself out of Facebook?  Probably not. Maybe a solution is to turn off the feeds of that are causing me to stumble in my love though. Because while its nice to be friends with folks, sometimes its just too much to hear that their kid did this and this today and he's/she's so cool because of that.  And a friendship no longer exists but only a competition. To me, that isn't healthy.  We are to use new media as a communication device to strengthen friendships, not tear them down.  So I will continue to use this new media in a way that does help me be a better friend, a better sister, a better mama, a better wife.  I'm not going to let the bad override the good.  Because in the end, its not who has the most friends that's important, but how we treat each other in love.

My little lizard

Just thought I'd post this for today.  It made me smile.

Our mass adventure

A quick post to see if you would actually do this yourself.  Or if my husband and I are crazy kids, I am betting the latter, but I thought I would ask anyway.

So, we decide to go to mass on Saturday evening instead of Sunday morning because Keith, my husband, has to work the Truth booth, or as other's would call it the pro-life booth, for the Feast of the Assumption at our church that evening.  So with that in mind, since the roads around our church are blocked off, and the parking lot is full of fair rides we decide to take the train, or the Rapid as some Clevelanders call it.  Though as soon as we get into the car to drive to trains station it begins pouring.  But we are headed east, so maybe we could outrun it right?  Well, sort of.

We made it to the train station fine, and it was only raining slightly hard there, and so with baby in tow we run for cover under the E. 55th train station.  Unfortunately this station is half under construction, so the blockage from the rain is minimal.  And what do you know the train is running late, by about oh ten minutes.  So Ben, Keith and I are chilling with the other soon to be train passengers on the stairs trying not to get wet.  It kinda worked, but the blowing rain kept getting us even with an umbrella.

The train gets there, and we speed on to it thru the first door, somehow in the 5 uncovered steps we get pretty wet.  But thats ok, as long as it stops before we get to the stop for the church.

Well we arrived, and low and behold its still raining, something about going east along with the storm maybe.  Hmm.  Well, with a delayed train we have to go anyway if we are gonna make it to mass on time.  So we decide to take our chances and go.  With the baby Bjorned up and an umbrella overhead, dressed in a skirt and sandals, I walk down E. 120th to mass. Keith without an umbrella kindly walks with me, but then I'm like you're a bit crazy, you should run not to get so wet.  So he does.

As we continue walking, there seemed to be an increasing amount of water on the street, and even on the sidewalk, till one point there is a good foot of water to tread through.  And my silly husband is running getting himself soaked more so, and I'm walking with Ben with my feet completely submerged in water. Fun. Needless to say we got there.  But I wonder are we crazy to have made this effort to get to mass?  We could have easily waited till Sunday to go without rain, and trains.

We did dry out throughout the mass and when it came to working the Truth Booth at the Feast, we were pretty dry except for Keith's feet since he had sneakers instead of sandals like myself. Ben even got to be the highlight of the Truth Booth.  Cause there's nothing like a cute baby to make you want to be pro-life right?

a post for the emo kid in me

I belong to the generation that is post-grunge, the one that was raised on emo.  We spent countless nights listening to Dashboard Confessional and the Juliana Theory; loving Jimmy Eat World before they got big with the hit The Middle.  And being that I was raised a conservative Christian, I got into bands like Mae, Bleach and Copeland.  Basically I loved anything that was on Militia Group Records.

So, this is probably not relevant to most people who read this blog these days, as most read it for Catholic and mommy stuff.  But this music stuff has been on my mind, so I thought I would post it anyway.  I was thinking about albums.  Certain albums when I first got them, it was like the best album ever, and others it was so-so. The odd thing is when that so-so album becomes the best album ever.  I think that Destination Beautiful by Mae is one of those albums.  When I first heard it, it was so-so, and actually didn't purchase it till after The Everglow came out because I really thought it wasn't worth a purchase, even though it would show up in my internet radio play that I did pre-Pandora. But now, it's like an amazing album to me.  The song All Deliberate Speed makes me smile everytime I hear it.  It's bizarre.

So my question is, to the music nerds out there, is there an album that you have had a similar experience with or is just me?

Btw for those of you in Cleveland my church's big Feast day celebration is this weekend.  Here is the link for more info: The Feast of the Assumption

hmm

You know those days when you have a million things running around your head but then when you go to write them down you forget them.  Well that is today.  Oh well.  I guess at minimum I can say that I am on to the last chapter of my thesis writing.  I don't want to be at a standstill with it, since I can't seem to find words for this chapter, so I am editing previous chapters in the meantime.  I can't wait for it to be done, but at the same time it totally freaks me out to have to go and defend.  But I can do it, I just have to not freak out and stutter so much.  Not that I have a stuttering problem, just a speaking in public problem for something big like this.

So besides that its my mama's birthday this weekend.  She probably wouldn't want me to tell you how old she is so I won't.  My grandmother, on the other hand I think is past that point, and her 85th birthday is approaching.  We are gonna take another trip to PA in a few weeks for that.  Hopefully its a fun family get together and to top that it is the first time will me that particular great-grandma.

Since this is a loss of words post, this is gonna wrap it up.  Though I am gonna use my stickies program to remember these thoughts a little better for the next post.  At least I am going to try to remember to use it. haha.

Devotions of the Catholic Variety

As the lovely Jordana tagged me in the latest chain post to hit the Catholic blogosphere. I decided I should actually respond to it. And it was a good thing to do as it made examine what devotions I really had as a Catholic Christian. I came up with three that I try to do regularly and two that I wish I did more. I am not sure they all are considered devotions but they are definitely things that I identify as Catholic that I wouldn't have done pre-conversion. So here they are.

1. First, a simple one with which to start. Nursing with Ben started out a little bit difficult, as I didn't know what I was doing and he was new to the world.  So we had to calm each other down in some way. What became the calming way was to say Hail Marys.  And not that this happens with every nursing session, but more times than not I need it more to calm me down throughout my day.  Praying to her helps me, whether it be to calm me, or to connect more with my son.  And for that I am thankful. 

2. The next is to read the daily mass readings While I would like to say this is a daily thing, it is more sporadic than I'd like it to be.  But I bring with me in being a convert my protestant love for scripture, and this makes me want to read more of God's word instead of relying on someone to tell me it. 

3. And the latest devotion that was added into my life was the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. My husband and I started praying this together in the evenings sometimes with Ben, though he just sits and plays with the Rosary beads in my hands.  It helps us to incorporate our petitions that others have given us and pray for those things on our minds as well.  And as a convert again, this prayer comes easier than the Rosary to me, as I was brought up in the Jesus only kind of world.

And to those devotions that I wish I did more. The first is adoration.  I love adoration, and that time before God and to just speak to him freely without distraction, but whatever it may be I don't get to do it nearly enough. The other is a firm devotion to a Saint. Even though I have a confirmation Saint (Anne Line).  I don't pray to her or to another regularly.  Though Saint Gianna Molla comes to mind more than others these days. 

And last to tag some folks to keep the blog chain going. First, new to the Catholic blogging world my friend  Dan, and then my faithful blog follower Andrea, and last my husband Keith to see if he will update his blog after a year of letting it just sit there.

harder for me

The little guy turned 5 months old today.  And while he still needs me a lot of the time, some things have changed.  As of late he's been putting himself to sleep.  No rocking, and no milk coma.  Just wiggles around a little vocally till he finds his comfy spot for sleeping.  It makes me sad though, even though this means less work for me.  Because this means that little by little as he grows he become less and less dependent.  Maybe this will help me to think and not dread the dependence times next time around.  I hope so.

This time around, I remember the first 2+ months of having to have a sleeping baby on me because he would not sleep any other way.  Now he's so different from that.  It seems sometimes that he will sleep better away from me than near me.  As he's semi transitioned to the crib, I wonder when the time will come for him to be in in own room.  I know I'm not ready, and with his night nursing he's still not ready.  But still  when he is ready, I don't know if I will be.  Sometimes these growing things are harder for me than him.  But it makes you want to love them more nonetheless, and to me that is a good thing.

A 5 month old shot for ya.