Overhauling the Machinery, 2014

My New Year's Resolution

I figured I had from the beginning of December,

The start of the Liturgical year,

To January 1st, to consider

How to be a convincing resolutioneer...

I thought I'd give up coffee

and my addiction to the java bean

Until my children, on the blessed feast of Christmas,

Gave me an Espresso Machine.

So much for that.

+

One always considers a diet

For starting out a bouncing fat baby new year

But even when I really do try that

I can never perservere.

(Seriously. Not with the ever-tempting presence

of coffee creamer, chocolate, and beer...)

So much for that.

+

It crossed my mind to work on immediately pertinent virtues

Like patience, long-suffering, and peace,

These being lifetime values

That would serve well my popularity to increase.

(If only I didn't have

So many opportunities

To be a cranky ole crab

While dutying my motherly duties...)

So, yeah, there's that.

+

But the virtues are like cogs fit together

The little virtues powered by the great;

The small vital wheels like patience and long-suffering

Turn by the three first Graces: Love, hope, and faith.

So I'm overhauling the machinery this new year;

I'm going to try to get the first cog cleaned and greased

In the hopes that by working on the Faith gear

All the other virtues will be increased!

Near Year's Resolution, 2014:  Meditating on, working on, praying for Faith

(And trying not to OD on espressos and cappuccinos...)

Happy Holy New Year to Everyone!

And may all our resolutions make Heaven smile --

in pleased anticipation, 

not in amused disbelief!

"Now faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that are not seen. . . . And without faith it is impossible to please God." (Heb. 11 :1,6)

** Dan's comment upon reading this: "It's not Walt Whitman, but it's cute.  Cute."  Heehee!  Working on my humility, too!  Thanks, Dan. ;)

15 Ticks of Multi-blessed Mommies

You can easily pick her out in a crowd, a mother of many children...  She:


1.  Cranes her neck around a lot, counting heads. If she's at a gathering without her children, she'll count everyone else's out of habit.

2.  Very often appears to have lost something.  Ducks under tables at the last moment before leaving restaurants -- looking for daughter's lost purses, sons lost action figures, babies lost pacifiers, etc.

3.  Repeats everything at least twice (sometimes three or four times) to make sure everyone has heard and understood.  Unfortunately, if the children aren't around, a multi-mom still does this, or has to bite her tongue to keep from doing it.

4.  Wears multi-colored prints to hide spots of spit up, stains from juice squeezed out of juice boxes, and waist-high, sticky, messy fingerprints.

5.  Carries a very large purse.  Or if she has a small one with her, you can bet she has a humongous one in the car.  May have one shoulder lower than the other from carrying this large purse.

6.  Often has one hip lower than the other from carrying toddlers around most of her adult life.

7.  Can do anything one-handed -- quickly and expertly -- from purchasing and paying for emergency animal crackers for the toddler on her hip -- to cooking, serving, and eating Thanksgiving dinner with an infant balanced on her shoulder.

8.  Navigates, with precision through the seats of restaurants, theaters, and church pews, rearranging her children (and sometimes other people's) so that no two trouble-makers are sitting together.

9.  Goes through a litany of names before hitting the right one -- and, while often (if not always) mistaking children's names, and even skipping generations (calling a daughter the name of her sister, for instance), she never jumps out of gender.  Anna is never mistakenly called Dominic; Jon is never called Theresa.  And this Mommy, at least, has never called anyone by the dogs' names.  Yet.

10.  Can occasionally be spotted batting children's prayerfully folded hands off the tops of pews during Mass, because she's just noticed that she missed checking little Hubert's fingernails before leaving home.

11.  Really does not hesitate to spit on Kleenex to clean her child's face in public -- even if it's at his college graduation.

12.  Backs out of driveways, hitting the brakes spastically, while darting furtive eyes out rear-view mirrors and swiveling to look repeatedly over her shoulder, because she fully expects that there's a bike, a, dog, a chicken, or a child behind her on the driveway somewhere -- even if she checked thoroughly before she got in the car.

13.  Buys storage containers compulsively.  There's always something that needs storing away -- for the next child, the next meal, the next season, the end of the world, whatever....

14.  Reads minds and sees out the back of her head.  QED: Knows instinctively when the children in the far back seat of the van are being sereptitiously rude and can, while keeping her eyes on the road, flick an empty baby bottle back-handed behind her over the heads of the passengers seats in-between, hitting her target, while delivering an equally well-aimed lecture on the virtue of charity.

15.  Knows who didn't come down to the computer just now to kiss her goodnight because they're up to something -- and who kissed her two times because they're stalling.  (I do know who you are, you know, kids....  Love ya' anyway.)

Seven

 1. Wednesday was our 25th wedding anniversary, and you know what we did?  We went for a long drive in the mountains and stopped at a nice restaurant for lunch on a rooftop balcony, then wound around to a movie theater but arrived between shows and didn't want to wait...

So we stopped at DQ (I had a Georgia Mud Fudge Blizzard, which I highly recommend) and then we drove home.  The girls had cleaned the house while we were gone, and everyone had made us cards, so hugs went all 'round.

Then, everyone (mainly the kids) watched an episode of the old Star Treks, washed up, brushed their teeth, and hit the sack.  That was it.  It was perfect.  Who could ask for anything more?  (No kidding, I could.  I loved our day out, but I'm totally looking forward to a longer vacation with Dan come summertime when we have "big kid babysitting" and more time to spend driving around, eating and talking.)

2.  Besides discussing all the children, then each child in his or her turn, then the state of the world, it's economy and our economy, and whether or not the old Dodge truck is powerful enough to pull our 5th wheeler -- we play a lot of word-type games when we go out driving together, Dan and I.  On this last excursion one of our random quizzes was to answer the question: What would make you most happy?  But, I didn't need to ask Dan, really, because I know the answer.

 What would make my husband most happy is if I loved him enough to make French Onion Soup -- and still live in the same house with him after he ate it.  And, after twenty-five years, I still say:

Sorry, Dan.  I love ya, but I don't French Onion Soup love ya.

(It's not you; it's the soup.)

3.  Did you know they had these on the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower?  If you happened to be in Chicago, and happened to be at the Sears Tower, would you go out there?

I would. But just for a minute maybe.

And only if I happened to be wearing slacks instead of a skirt that day.

(Yes, well... Ya gotta think of these things...)

4.  Here's an easy, yummy, homemade tootsie roll recipe...
Ingredients:
2 Tbs butter, softened
1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup dry milk powder
1/2 cup white corn syrup

Directions
Mix all ingredients together and knead it as you would bread dough.  Roll into rope shapes and cut into desired lengths.  Wrap in pieces of plastic wrap.  Makes roughly 2 dozen traditional-sized pieces.

Just what we all needed, huh?  But, no worries!  Make some up Saturday because:

5.  Sunday is International No Diet Day.  Really, it is.  I plan not to diet that day.  I plan to eat tootsie rolls.

6.  We get our tv exposure from Netflix, and you just never know what you're going to scroll across on the lists when you're relaxing at the end of the day...  When the kids are in bed, and we've got our glass of wine... We wiggle our toes out of our shoes, get into our jammies and get ready to unwind and watch ...  Are you ready for this?  Ice Road Truckers in the Himalayas.  And Swamp People.  Yeah.  I know.  Tells you something about us, doesn't it?  But, seriously.  Both of those shows absolutely hypnotize me.  Why, you ask?  For one thing, they really are both spine-tinglingly spine tingling -- and they make me so very happy we live where we do:  safe from maniac Indian bus drivers and bus-sized alligators. And you've just gotta love that crazy Swamp People Cajun accent. After watching a whole season of the show, I can now actually understand what they're saying without reading the crawl at the bottom.  I could be a translator! (Though I'm not fluent to speak it yet).

 And that little slip of a girl who drove the rickety old truck through the Himalayas?  All I can say is: "Wow." And, "Are you crazy, girl?"  Same comments I've heard countless times through the years -- but Lisa Kelly's job makes mothering ten kids look easy...  Granted, Miss Kelly would probably rather drive a rickety truck over the Himalayas than raise ten kids, but, if you think about it, our jobs have some striking parallels.  Seriously.  For both of us it's all about staying on the road, delivering our cargos to the proper destination, and not killing anybody.


7.  A note to my husband on the off-chance that he'll see it here and notice that it's addressed to him:  I love you, Dan.  Remember how you promised to clean the refrigerator as a favor to me...   two weeks ago?  Well, just so you know... I'm not nagging or anything, and I so totally understand all the things that have distracted you -- as I've certainly welcomed my own distractions from cleaning the fridge, too --  but I just thought you'd appreciate a heads up:  Mother's Day is May 13th.  That's a Sunday, you know.  I can arrange to be out of the house on Saturday, the 12th...  Just sayin'.




Run over to Jen's at Conversion Diary for oodles and skads of Quick Takes posts.

Coffee Cups

We have a cupboard -- you know, the kind that goes back way deep into the corner -- full of coffee cups.  We have bits and pieces of acouple of  matched sets, plus several tall, colorful "theme" cups; one has snowmen on it, another is one I painted at a ceramics shop.  Several we've had so long, I don't know where they came from, and I don't know why I keep them - like this one, for instance:

I was pulling out a cup after Mass this morning, to serve as a middleman from the coffee pot to my lips -- as I am feeling in particular need of a caffeine jolt --  and this little old brown cup was front and center.  Where it came from I have no idea, but look at that cup.  Check out the little tiny handle on it.  My city grandfather (whom we called "Pappy")  was a big coffee drinker.  Got up at around 5 a.m. every day and drank black coffee until the early afternoon, when he switched to Schlitz.   We loved it when Pappy came to visit, as he was generally a very jolly grandfather, but coffee at our house never started his day off well because he hated our coffee cups; the handles were too small.  Like those on that brown cup. 

My grandfather had the thick, craggy hands of a man who had spent a long life working hard with his hands, and it offended his sense of manliness, I think, that our cups were too small for his fingers. He also had a problem with the lid of our sugar container, because it required small, dextrous fingers to get ahold of.  And, though I don't remember him actually complaining, I wouldn't wonder if he weren't underwhelmed with the coffee in the cup, as well.  My grandmother brewed a serious pot of coffee, black as night, strong as Atlas, with enough punch to propel you into the next day.  My Mom's coffee was (and is) dainty and subtle or -- as Pappy probably thought -- pretty limp-wristed in comparison.  Though we kids did our best to keep our grandfather on his toes bright and early in the morning, I think he'd rather have had some nice strong coffee in a more manly cup.  Poor Pappy.  I'm having a good strong cuppa joe thinking of him this morning -- and it's in a cup with fairies and flowers painted on it but the handle is big enough even for his thick fingers.   

Funny the things you remember, isn't it?

Cleaning Out My Picture File...

This is what I found.

The Omaha "Bigs" at Work



Dominic'sduties at the Seminary include cooking for his fellow seminarians,
as well as all the boarder kids at the school.  Here he is making garlic bread.



"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?"
 Matthew 5:13



Jon at his morning job at the hospital coffee shop, just around the corner from Dominic at the Seminary.



Caffeine is my shepherd; I shall not doze. It maketh me to wake in green pastures:
It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses.
It restoreth my buzz:
It leadeth me in the paths of consciousness for its name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of addiction,
I will fear no Equal™:
For thou art with me; thy cream and thy sugar they comfort me.
Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presence of The Starbucks:
Thou anointest my day with pep; my mug runneth over.
Surely richness and taste shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the House of Mochas forever.
~Author Unknown

  And at Play




Our good friend, Sarah, who works at a popular Omaha gourmet ice cream shop. (Pictured here with Jon, Michelle, and good friend, Genevieve)

"My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy the ice cream while it's on your plate."



~ Thornton Wilder

 

"See how they love one another?"
~ Tertullian, 3rd century

Christmas Blessings

Girls who smile obediently.

Boys who don't.

Four Generationsof Family

Together for the Holidays

The great grandparents, the grandparents, the parents, the grandbaby:

Dan, me, and all ten children:

Paul, Nicole and baby Gavin:

And Gavin, himself,

the baby whose butt need never touch a solid surface...

with special buddy, Jon:

\

with my mom:

with Anna:

with Theresa:

with Dan's mom:

with Dominic:

with Cathy:

with his godparents, Michelle and Kevvy:

with his Dandad:

Missing:  a picture pairing of Gavin with Uncles Gabe and William.  As soon as we

get them weaned off the Christmas candy and able to sit still for five minutes...  we'll try for that.  Stay tuned...

Merry Sixth Day of Christmas!

Saturday Updates

* Just found out this morning from Nicole that Paul's MOS will be the one we've prayed for: the Marines will be the proud employer of a stellar Logistics Dude sometime soon, which I think means he will, indeed, be training in North Carolina for a couple of months.  Any NC relatives reading will be pleased to know they'll get to see more of my baby grandson than I will for a little while at the first of the year! (I'm so jealous!)  I guess it'll be a while yet before we find out where his first assignment will be, but CA is in the prayers.  Right now we're all praying that little Gavin decides to come well before Paul's big graduation day, December 16th, the day after the baby's due date.  It would be so much easier on your Momma and Daddy, Gavin, if you'd show up around, say the 12th, so your other grandma can get there for your first few days -- and then this grandma (Mommom to you, sweetie patoot) can tag team visit, too...

* A lot less important, but significant to the egg gatherers here-abouts:   Cathy and I went and picked up five more laying hens this morning after Mass.  We'd lost that many since July, what with one thing and another, so now we're back to fifteen chickens, which includes Fr. J's hens that we're babysitting for him...  We've got six dozen eggs in the fridge now and more coming all the time.  I think I'm going to have to get in the habit of making the children eggs for breakfast again... 

Have I ever mentioned that Cathy named one of the roosters after her brother, Kevin, so whenever we're talking about one or the other, we have to specify?  As in:  "Kevin's out there being mean to the girls -- I mean Kevin the rooster." or "Kevin -- I mean Kevin, my brother -- had better be here for Christmas, or I'm going to fry him for dinner when I see him."

*  Oh!  Just got a big load of hay, too.  And now Dan is pushing me to have a barn sale to get rid of my stuff so he can fit more hay in.  Like the barn is meant for hay and not all my old wrought iron and furniture?  Seriously. 

* Other incidental news:  For our Date-Night-In last night, Chef Dan prepared salmon in our smoker on the back porch.  He knew he'd hit a home run with that choice, as I love, love, love smoked salmon, but he found some asparagus, made hollandaise sauce, and poured us some red wine, too, so the dinner was outta- the-park delicious.  And we watched the movie Knowing with Nicholas Cage, which was exciting but extremely weak in the storyline, we thought.  It seemed to us to be a Signs wannabe that wimped out of a solid Christian message.  Though the characters struggle with the same question of an atheist's view of random events vs. the Christian idea of providence, Knowing introduces an alien-life "determinism" to the mix -- which theme they then muddy up with just enough Christianity to really confuse the story.  Weird.  It only had two blasphemies (though one is too many) and no real modesty or purity problems, but the mixed messages in the plot make it a no-recommendo -- especially for children.

* And, not like it would be surprising to anyone, but it's October and I haven't seen my two high-school kids (except for a couple of brief moments in September) for two months now, and I miss their faces.  So I'm posting them here, because I just want to look at them...

These two:

Aren't they cute?  This was about five years ago when they went to CA together
to visit with Grandma and Grandpa.  (Check out the boogey-board burn on Dominic's
chubby little belly...  )



Michelle (15) last spring. What a difference a couple years make.
She's so grown up now!  But that same beautiful smile still lights
up rooms everywhere she goes.  :)



Dominic's junior year school picture.
He's a senior this year.  Chubby little belly is long gone.  :(
All the other pics I have of him on this computer, he's either in
the distance or making a silly face.  



This silly face.



Gosh, I miss their goofiness!

But, all reports are that they're doing great at school in Nebraska, are a pleasure to have in class, and only err toward being too sociable at times.  My children too sociable?  ;0)  You'd think they were teenagers or something.



* Missing lots of other faces, too.  Can't WAIT to see Paul and Nicole and GAVIN in December!  Hope to see Jon pretty soon, as (thank-You, God!) Jon got a job in Denver and will be there going to college for the foreseeable future.  And, Kevvy, who has been in Minnesota, is returning to the Denver area to go to school, too, so we'll hopefully be seeing him soon, too.  Yay!   And Thanksgiving is coming soon, so we'll be seeing most everybody in about a month and a week.  We're already preparing for a house full...