Those reports you read about coffee being good for you? Do you believe them?
I'm almost as skilled as a liberal economist at living in a state of denial, but I have to be honest about this thing. I know I'd probably be better off -- health-wise -- without coffee. I won't bore you or depress myself with the list of reasons. Sigh... It is what it is. And I'm not shy about admitting that I'm sitting here with a cup at my elbow as I type. Mental health counts for something, right?
I have a new doctor that's helping me kick Lyme's, and I think she understands this. I liked her from the first moment I laid eyes on her; she's a wonderfully cute and upbeat little thing. And so smart! (As an aside, how crazy is it, y'all who are my age, when your doctor is the age of your children? It's not that you take them any less seriously, but you have to refrain from calling them "dearie"...) Anyway, Dr. J and I were going over my diet the other day (I'm on a fairly strict version of the Paleo diet right now), and I didn't really want to know, but in the spirit of at least appearing to be serious about a cure, I asked her: "So... What about coffee? Will I have to give it up?"
Her eyes followed the dotted line my eyes were making to the half-consumed cup of joe next to her laptop. She sighed, fixed me with a telling look of impending doom, and said, (insert dramatically low cello notes here) "Not. Yet."
The second daughter, third child of our first son,
Paul and his beautiful wife, Nicole.
Such an angel, ohmygoodness!
She was 7 lbs, 4 oz and 19" long.
The whole family: Paul and Nicole, Gavin, Evelyn, and Lillian
*Also: In December, Paul (with a full heart) retires his military career as a Captain in the United
States Marine Corps, takes a private sector job, and makes a cross country move with his family from Florida (a long drive from Iowa!) to Minnesota (a hop-skip-jump at only 6 hours away for us grandparents!)
* And, no less important: Paul receives his MBA from the University of North Carolina in the fall of 2018!
February 11, 2018
Our number four son, Dominic, marries our dear friend, Monica.
So many blessings in this marriage already! They're so perfect for one another!
(Stay tuned about these two. More below!)
The whole kit and kaboodle, including grandchildren, grandparents, spouses
and Auntie Linda at Dominic and Monica's wedding.
February 18th, 2018
Sr. Maria Antonia (formerly Theresa Philomena) receives the black veil,
the first step into the Congregation of Mater Dei ( headquartered
here in Iowa and affiliated with the Congregationof Maria Regina Immaculata).
All of Sister Maria Antonia's new sisters, her family in Religion.
May 3, 2018
Our number three son, formerly known as Johanath Charles,
is ordained to the priesthood as a Religious Father of the CMRI.
Here you see the moment of consecration, Bp. Mark Pivarunas presiding.
Fr. Philip Marie Davis, CMRI, at the Consecration of the Wine, his first Mass, May 4, 2018
(It was glorious!)
* Also in the new year (much to our delight), Fr. Philip is transferred to Paul and Nicole's parish in Minnesota! It's not a long drive for us to see both our boys (and Paul's family), and it makes us happy that they're together. No telling how long it'll last, but it's golden for right now. :) May, 2018
Child number seven, Catherine, graduates from high school and snags a boyfriend,
Louis, who happens to be Michelle's (child #5) brother in law. Everyone approves.
(And aren't they so cute?) Cathy also landed a full-time job at Hobby Lobby.
(Can I hear a Huzzah! fellow-crafters!?)
June 2018
Number five child, Michelle, and her husband and children move to Nebraska!
Less than an hour away from the Iowa homestead!
Mommom and Dandad are very very happy about this.
Pictured here: on Dandad's lap, Daria; on Mommom's lap, Ella
August 11, 2018
Second son, Kevin, marries sweet, lovely Ina in Uberlingen, Germany. The nuptial high Mass
and bestowal of the sacrament of Holy Matrimony is officiated by Kevvy's brother,
Fr. Philip Marie, his best friend, Fr. Carlos Borja, and his good friend and pastor, Fr. Johannes Heine.
Words cannot describe the beauty of this Mass, the church, the countryside, the reception... Every little thing is perfect and amazing!
Love these two! Wish they lived closer! They've set up housekeeping in Germany.
(I've got tons of photos of our European trip to share at some point. Keep checking in!)
August 31, 2018
Daria and Ella get a baby sister! Claudia Cecilia is born and gets to be baptized
by her uncle, Fr. Philip. Mommom gets to play proxy Godmother and hold
baby Claudia at the big moment. (photo montage courtesy of Michelle)
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Michelle and Ben's littlest cherub.
Almost five and a half months old now.
September, 2018
Anna, child number eight, turns sixteen and decides it's time
to move on from homeschooling (seeing as everyone else is doing the same thing),
and enters Mater Dei Academy as a junior (where her brothers and Michelle
went for high school). My loss = Sr. Gertrude's gain...
We kinda like this beautiful girl. Just a smidge.
(She's doing great!)
Also in September
Children numbers nine and ten, Gabe and William, decide they want to give the Minor
Seminary in Rathdrum, Idaho a try this year (2018-19) instead of next. And how is a Mom to say "no" to that? I couldn't possibly have, and though I miss them like crazy, they're both doing great, pulling As and B sand becoming independent and mature young men. (sniff!) We're all very proud of them!
Gabe's taken up juggling! He's a pro now!
And William -- is just William.
Thank goodness!
December 13, 2018
Last, but not least, this sugarplum finishes off our year of amazing
and wonderful things: Dominic and Michelle's first baby,
Margaret Mary Anne Davis: 8 lbs, 6 oz and 20" long.
Our seventh grandchild, sixth grand daughter!
Doncha love it? Another new little Catholic family. <3 td="">
And there you have it.
2018 in a nutshell. Still more like a coconut shell, even when it's summarized, I guess, but this is as bare bones as I can excavate. There's so much more!Believe me, there are stories and rumors of stories and jokes and pranks and miraculous saves behind every one of the year's milestones! But this gives you an idea, at least, of why other things took precedence over blogging this past year.
Things have calmed down considerably in 2019, though. So far. I think. As you've gathered, I'm sure, I'm pretty much home alone these days. The boys are in Idaho most of the year now, Anna is in school most of the day, and I'll only get to see Cathy and Dan when they're not at work. Which is weird. But it's all good. I'm working (or, more aptly not working) to kick the Lyme's Disease I contracted last fall (something else that happened), so I'm not up to getting a paying job at this point. I have time now (theoretically) to loll around, get healthy, and blog. And other stuff, too, I imagine. I'll let you know about that as it comes up. I'll share some of the photos I collected on our European adventures, at some point here, too, and I have a backlog of memes and links and random thoughts to share -- a lot of them based on this new phase of our lives right now -- and goofiness where ever I can find it, of course. Keep checking back to see what I'm in the mood to post as the days go by!
And, do please leave comments! Bloggers live for comments! Keep in mind, if you're coming from facebook that II won't see them on my FB link, as I'm on hiatus there, but I'll see them over here. Don't be shy!
I'm determined to get this ball rolling again. This is going to be fun!
Hi! Hello? Is anyone out there? See me over here waving? It's me? Remember me?
I know, right? It's been a long separation. I haven't written a blog post since June of 2016. That's more than two and a half years! Crazy. But the time has flown.
Our homeschool now has ten alumni,
seven graduates, only three still
in school -- but no longer at home.
More on that later.
It's been a wild couple of years (you have no idea!) and we've been busy, but I've missed blogging! And I've missed the blogging community that used to exist for Mom-bloggers in my narrow niche -- and it is a slim little crevice of a niche. Catholic. Homeschoolers. Mothers of a large family. With time to write about it all. They're still out there. Lots of them! But in blogland? I'm not sure the same kind of give-and-take community exists any more; I think it may have been superseded by other social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), but I thought it was time to renew the habit, regardless. It's always nice to have readership and conversation, but I can live without it. (Don't take me too seriously, though. Seriously. Read. Come back. Comment. Tell your friends!)
Don't doubt it for a second.
This little blog has stretched out across eight years, eight moves, a couple weddings, a couple grandbabies, hundreds of feast days, holidays, recipes, silly memes, funny little family incidents, and even a handful of serious thoughts. It was an amazing time capsule for our family between August 2007 and June 2016 -- just short of nine years! I'm a little sad that it'll have a big gap between June 2016 and now, but I hope I'll be able to continue after this post and get into my old habits, sharing now about the transition from big-Catholic-family-homeschool Mom of a bazillion small children to big-Catholic-family Mom of teenagers, young adults, married couples, and Religious -- and grandmother to a growing menagerie of (crazyfunnybeautiful) grandchildren.
'Cause, why not? It's a good exercise for me, writing stuff down. I enjoy it. And, seriously, you never know: maybe some day my grandchildren will stumble across these cyber-pages like Howard Carter happening upon King Tut's tomb (maybe that's a bad analogy, considering the curse and everything), but still, they might find something of interest to them in these cyber pages. Under tons of sand, you sometimes find gold. Or pictures of your parents when they were twelve that they'd rather you didn't see.
* Coming up: Catching up! (Stay tuned.)
Me and Dan, this past summer. On the Av. des Champs-Elysees.
You might be able to tell from the header photo up there that our hammock is near a little wilderness. It's actually right on the edge of a small forest within many square miles of countryside. I love it. Such beautiful views, and all the birdsong... It would be wonderfully peaceful -- except for one problem: there are lots of creepy sounds of creaking and randomly snapping twigs and rustling in the underbrush up there!
Hammock-sitters are speculating: is it something perfectly innocuous or something that should come accompanied with scary-warning music? Nobody's heard any screeching violins or repetitive 4-note themes pulsating in the depths of the forest. So... Perhaps what we're hearing really is just the wind, or the dogs and cats, or squirrels and raccoons...
BUT. What if it's really (shiver) the neighborhood mountain lion? Or... (Insert scary music) Is it...
William, inspired by D-Day movie, "The Longest Day."
What's Up:The Specs * headed for "Oaktree Beach" * a member of "Paddy's Light Infantry." (Paddy, btw, is the cat.) * a "corporal and a group leader of two divisions." (Huh?) * tells me he won't be in this division much longer because he's " getting too fat and these pants barely fit my legs."
So I'm wondering what does this mean? Does he get a promotion when he moves up to the next size pants, or what? I guess I'll have to wait and see, though. He wouldn't tell me because I was laughing...
