HAPPY EASTER!!!!

What a joyous day. It has been so FELT by this momma! God has been so good to me!!!

First - click this link, and turn up the speakers. I would love to have a recording of our choir singing this every Easter and Christmas. It is captures our amazing Jesus Christ and the Glory of God triumphant through the Holy Spirit that I'm sure helped to inspire the writing of this song by Matt Maher. LOVE HAS COME!!! He is the reason for the season!




Don't you just feel like shouting thank you over and over and over? Oh, God, how I love you!

After Mass:

  Our three blessings:

Loving this day with my parents (ages 76 and 89!!!):

Silly Outtakes:

Capturing true personalities:

One Blessed Family in this Easter SEASON! I have so much to be grateful for!!!

Happy Easter to your family, from ours. We LOVE you!

We Are An Easter People!

We are an Easter people.

Every day we overcome death.

We overcome financial death. Relationship death. Death blows from a bully, a boss, a friend, a foe, a circumstance, an event, our infirm bodies, and blows from our own inner voices.

We suffer the pain, we entomb ourselves in numbness, escape..and then....

We rise.

We rise because He rose.

We are an Easter people.

He is Risen!!!! Alleluia!!!

Tonight, Hubby and I played at one of the parishes for their Easter Vigil. They have such a lovely Mass. Here we are in front of their beautiful altar:

Tomorrow, we are back at our home parish with our children. Can't wait to get their pictures tomorrow. Love to you, this wonderful Easter SEASON!

Blessings and love!

Broken for You.

Blessed Good Friday to you. 

Many thanks to Kris for sharing her homemade Ezekiel Bread with my family today (that link is not to her exact recipe). I sense a new tradition on fasting days.

I love the quiet of Good Friday. Though, today my house is finally full of many children. Some friends of ours our moving into a new house this weekend (what timing!) and their two daughters (16 months and 6) are hanging out all day with us. While we were waiting for them to arrive, Lovely went with Kris and her family to our church for children's Stations of the Cross. I'm feeling very full and blessed from my village of friends - from their gifts of bread to sharing their children.

Along with Jesus paying the ultimate price for us - being so GOOD to us, these are just a few reasons more why this Friday is Good Friday.

hi.

A little jewel on FB. Love this!!! 

hehe!

Joy!! Hope!! We have a Pope!

Here is a picture of my excited kids, letting the excitement on TV carry over into their hearts and our living room:

Habemus Papem!!!!

God Bless Pope Francis!!!

While I know he probably took the name for Francis Xavier, I love this account from another Francis, St. Francis...maybe who the founder of the Jesuits was named for: 

"Rebuild my Church"

"St. Francis, Kneeling before an image of the Crucified, he was filled with great fervor and consolation as he prayed. While his tear-filled eyes were gazing at the Lord's cross, he heard with his bodily ears a voice coming from the cross, telling him three times: 'Francis, go and repair my house which, as you see, is falling into ruin.'

Trembling with fear, Francis was amazed at the sound of this astonishing voice, since he was alone in the church; and as he received in his heart the power of the divine words, he fell into a state of ecstasy. Returning finally to his senses, he prepared to put his whole heart into obeying the command he had received." 

So much to pray for!!! May God bless this humble man with a huge job ahead....God bless our Shepherd. 

SO EXCITED!!!!

Always Timely

When I can manage to do all my morning prayer, meditation, and Lenten readings done (ha, ha and ha....I TRY) it never ceases to amaze me what speaks to me, what helps me, and what is so timely in its message.

This is from today's 3 Minute Retreat (in Lent, called 3+ Minute Retreat). I love that the "+" reflection is by one of my favorites - Lisa Hendey!

First, it reminds me to breathe, breathe through and away with my anxiety (ha!)

Then...the scripture reflection is this:

Blessed are we who live our lives in the name of the Lord. But do we always remember what it means to be a disciple? We must remind ourselves that our lives are about dying as well as rising. There is no resurrection without death. Life in the Lord requires glory one day and dejection the next. As disciples we have hope, because we know that God holds us the entire time.

 

How can you bless the dying and the rising of your life, knowing that both are in the name of the Lord? 

Indeed. How shall I answer this today? Time to reflect. 

Much love!

Weekend Catchup - and about our home...

I can't begin to say thank you for the comments, emails, calls, or txts about my hard week and my posts last week. Thank you. I enjoyed praying for you as well. I can tell you I felt those prayers for hours on Friday and they got me through the day. Being SO busy Saturday helped distract me, and today's endorphins from my 1st 10K run EVER really helped me!!!!!!!  God has been faithful and good to me.

I wanted to quickly clarify something. I do agree we should not move too soon. I actually prefer waiting, saving, etc. What I can't really elaborate on is the personal struggle on why I don't want to stay HERE for too long. Our condo is a total BLESSING, but there are a few personal reasons for being conflicted after a 1 1/2 year stay that I can't blog about. I was concerned my post sounded snobbish (and rereading it, it looks that way...that I'm "done" with living in a little condo with no yard). I honestly could living in another little apartment or condo...no yard...if it was a place where we could wander about outside. I just long for a place where outside play is a possibility. That's about all I can say. That just clarifies my "yard" wish. I should have said "outside space".

I fully support my husband in this pause and possible change of plans. Do I have concerns that he's also making decisions because he is scared of future stumbles....? Kinda, (and he knows this) and that was where my post was coming from. And being stuck for a long time where we are with my private concerns elicited an emotional reaction from me.  That and just anxiety, plain and simple, clouding my mind and decision making. We are quite a married pair! :)

I can't tell you how blogging and asking for prayer helped my anxiety, and I loved learning from Blair about the great NFP recommended vitamin. I'm still discerning seeking more medication (I just need to DO it - call and learn more. I was on a roll, then  fell off that wagon), but not bottling up helped. The other thing that helped on Friday was getting the children and I out for a picnic lunch in the gorgeous sunshine and climate. We went to a local small nature park (near our community garden) and it was the balm I needed on top of all the prayers. As my dear S told me....I'm a sunflower. I can't be kept in doors! It helped this wilted spirit for sure! I thank my Small Steps for Catholic Mothers Lenten Prompts for getting me outside.  

It was gorgeous outside!

Can you spot my 3 blessings? 

Then Lovely had a sleepover and the younger two went with me to play with their Godsister while I babysat her and her little twin brother and sister. Perfect evening for outside play! 

Then today...I ran my first 10k!!! What a blessing of endorphins. I've been getting back to running, with Lovely, thanks to my dear Kris (we run with our two 3rd graders during the week) and my dear J, my Goddaughter's mommy, who made us sign up for this race and with whom I run with on weekends. It's been a blessing. Today we did it...J's and my first 10k! We ran with another high school friend and the wife of a teacher at the high school. Being so close to St. Patrick's Day, the race was top o the green :)

I finished in 1:15:58. I was really pumped! The urban view of the race was really lovely....such a contrast to my normal love of nature:

Taken running over an overpass, cleared for runners.

A really funny story from this morning before the run. J and I planned to have me meet at her house at 7:15am. With the "springing ahead" - I had my husband set his alarm along with mine for 6:30am (as a backup since we both use cell phones as our clocks and I didn't know if they both would auto update during the night). I think Hubs accidentally messed with his to help it along, and this morning, it was the only alarm that went off. I woke up to him hitting me (mostly in his sleep LOL!) saying I needed to get up, my cell never rang. So, on auto pilot, I got ready and left. I noticed the dash clock said 4:55am. I started to think...wait...that would mean it is 5:55am??? So I'm heading to J's at 6am, not 7am??!!!!!!!! WHAT???!! It was hysterical to me that I got up at 4:30am for an 8:30am race. Goodness! And, as I waited in my car outside J's house (all dark as they were asleep), my alarm went off at 6:30am as needed. GAH!! LOL Gotta love a good laugh!

Afterwards, I was graced by a well earned nap, more Alleve (ha!), evening Mass, and then this YUMMY dinner celebrating the SUN STILL BEING OUT!!

A hummas and veggie sandwich on seven grain bread with fruit. So freaking delicious!!! The colors made me happy too. I am that social networker who takes pics of my food. HA!

Ok, I need to get to bed. Bootcamp at 5:45am, and then a full day of homeschooling. I need my rest. I was feeling anxious again this evening, but simply recapping my day has helped. PLEASE pray for me, and please post how I can pray for you. I need to focus on others.

Blessing!!! Enjoy the birth of Spring!

Need encouragement

So, we have this plan for 2013 to move out of this condo and into a rental home. We lost a little time/$ in the   job move/paycut of last summer, but still seemed on plan for a move this summer. I get asked all the time when the kids will get a yard, etc (even asked by friends at the church's Lenten fish dinner, my sister, parents, etc). I admit, it puts pressure on me. Or rather....I ALLOW it to pressure me. I give words and people power.

Problem is, husband is having some doubts on the time table. It's good he is being cautious, and while I'm all for eating beans and rice so we can move - he wants to be more realistic. So, we are trying to compromise, plan a NEW budget, try to find a plan that works for us.

I just need prayers. I very much want to do what keeps our family afloat - I just battle having the life sucked out of me in our current location. I have selfish emotional needs that are just drowning here. I yearn for a small yard for the kids, and a safe neighborhood. I yearn for energy that comes from feeling I'm on the right path, and I feel so stunted here now. This condo was supposed to be for short term recovery...and we are still here a year and half later. It's all me. The kids and Hubby are content here (well, Hubby is not fully, but he feels relief from his past stress here. Lovely does ask every other day when we are moving...but she is easily distracted).

So I need encouragement to stay positive, and prayers for acceptance that ultimately, God has this...and Hubby and I need to listen and make smart decisions.

Oh...how it helps to blog these feelings, instead of bottling them up. In real life, I feel like a never ending broken record (or would be, if I let myself say them out loud).

Blessings to you! Always post your prayer needs in the com box. I need reminders and reasons to pray!!

I did it!!

Hey! Take a look at my blog site (not just on reader). I finally created my own banner LOL! I changed some of my colors around. HA! This is a big deal for me. What do you think? I snapped that picture in 2011 after losing our house and my husband getting so sick.

The blog header is a rather rough crop of this picture:

I was at our dear former next door neighbors house letting the children play together. I happened to look up and see these leaves, clinging to the branches in the cold wind. It was way past all the other leaves falling to the ground in the neighborhood. They were holding on in spite of the wind, the weather, the climate, everything. And, they were glowing in the sun's rays.

I TOTALLY knew how they felt.

I was one of those leaves - vibrant, shimmering, yet clinging for dear life in the wind. I snapped a picture on my phone.

I will cling. I will hold on. I will shine. This was what I was meant to do.

I will cling to the vine.

Thanks for your prayers!