You know those ‘color-changing’ glue sticks?
They go on pink so you can see where you’ve applied the product and then dry clear. I saw white ceiling paint at Home Depot that works on the same principle. Goes on pink; dries white. Cool.

Bring In ‘Da Sturm, Bring In ‘Da Drang
What does this 21st century homeschooling woman want? A right hand diamond? Nah. Better bookshelves. One trip to Home Depot later, we are now reconfiguring the school area with two new short shelves and a tall shelf. This is turning out a little more chaotic than hoped, but it’s all working. Minimal arguments and misunderstandings. Time to unplug while pater works the drill.

Betcha didn’t know I once grew cotton...

One plant. One long Wisconsin summer.
It must then be fitting that I am a
.....BOLL WEEVIL (Feb 20 - March 20)
You have an overwhelming curiosity. You're unsatisfied with the surface of things, and you feel the need to bore deep into the interior of everything. Needless to say, you are very intense and driven as if you had some inner hunger. You love to stay busy and tend to work too much. Nobody in their right mind is going to marry you, so don't worry about it.

What Southern Sign are you?
Check out Summa Mamas to find out!

Book Fun!
A Dusty, Sunny Corner
A book discussion forum for Catholics

That Dennis Miller Show....
on CNBC is good. That doesn’t mean that I don’t regret staying up until midnight watching it. I’m habituated to waking up at 5:30 am so I knew what was coming. I’m a little bleary and even the adrenaline rush of hearing
a bird thrashing around in the powder-room vent hasn’t brought me to full clarity of mind.

Here’s the comment that I would have left on Amy Welborn’s blog if the comments were working....

“Haven't read all of what Popcak has to say, so I don't know if he has anything to say about the emphasis our society puts on personal happiness. I see a lot of media (even Christian/Catholic media) aimed at couples interested in developing a 'happy' marriage. Are we being encouraged to settle for nothing less than a 'happy' marriage? (And I'm not talking about forcing people to stay in sick, abusive situations, but about leading people to think that if they aren't 'happy' they are being abused.) Don't even get me started on the pop literature that prattles on about soulmates.
How much is addressed to couples who don't have 'happy' marriages? What about people who realize after X number of years that they didn't marry their soulmate? And now they know that they have no real reason to vacate the vows they made on their wedding day.....and why can't they be 'happy.'

Are we idolizing 'happiness?" Do we worship well-known, 'happy' Catholic couples? (And, yes, now we're seeing the fall-out from putting celebrity 'happy' Catholic couples in a special niche of admiration.) Is it time to start asking God to help us be happy even if we aren't 'happy?' “

Maybe she’ll have the comments back on when I get back from work at NOON! (Today I’m training my second part-time person on the Saturday routine. Then I am free! So to speak...)
Maybe the bird will be out of the vent. Maybe Rick will have replaced the vent cover. (I want so badly to run through the house screaming “I told you so. Don’t think I didn’t see this day coming weeks ago when I saw the vent cover in the middle of the back yard!” But that would be bad form. And would beg the rejoinder, “Why didn’t you fix it?”)

In praise of small, beautiful things.....

2 robins outside my window.

Temp. at 6:30am is 58 degrees. (Didn’t keyboards used to have a little degree mark somewhere? If it’s here, I don’t see it...)

Last night was the first Wednesday night that I have had off of work and been able to attend our parish monthly holy hour in, maybe, six months? And the weather was so nice I didn’t mind standing out in front of the church for fifteen minutes waiting for Rick to pick me up. The police drove by twice. Now I am probably on the suspicious characters list...

Am just about done training two women to take over my night and week-end hours at the rectory. I have had a great opportunity to take on a different. though much the same, position five mornings a week. Just mornings. But, unlike that noble experiment of a semester at the primary school, I do not arrive home feeling like I have been keel-hauled.

I am about at the end of my tether covering the over-lap of time from when the morning position started and suitable evening replacements have been found. Last Saturday I answered the phone “Good Evening, Church of St. XXX” at 9:00 in the morning! (new phrase in the kids vocab: “Three to three-thirty is Mom’s Power Nap time.) I’m sure the clergy may be getting a little tired of seeing my face first thing in the morning 6 days a week and last thing in the evening on 5.

The replacements are competent and eager to learn the details of the job. The biggest hurdles: a) I’ve never really trained anyone for a job. (Dearest children, please don’t bother to chime in with my adventures in toilet-training and teaching stick shift driving. I know. I know.) b) the two final suitable job candidates are not Catholic. So there is a lot that I have to teach them that I already knew when I walked in to the job. I want to make sure they understand what they are doing. And I don’t want to blow this opportunity for evangelization!

Time to go.
What's that outside the window? Rain? That's good, too!

On Wisconsin!

On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin!
Grand old badger state!
We, thy loyal sons and daughters,
Hail thee, good and great.

Wisconsin may have been the place from which I was trying to escape as a youth. With nostalgic yet fairly objective hindsight, I see it as quite a nice place to grow up.

Can somebody explain to me the reason that when there is no more room in Hell.....the overflow shows up in Wisconsin? Sounds like the workings of a seventeen year-old mind which thinks Wisconsin is like, the worst place to be stuck. Like next to hell, dude.

“What's your record for consecutive questions asked?”
I found myself in the predicament of entertaining several young people the other evening while their parents and older siblings were seeing the pastor for a pre-confirmation interview. The rectory is not really a child-friendly place and despite my experience as a mother of six, former La Leche League and Brownie Leader and a CCD teacher, I’m not a natural at entertaining kids. I never felt called to babysit as a young girl. In fact, I did my best to avoid it whenever possible.

So, I notice a young man loitering in the front hallway. His parents must have told him to sit tight for ten miinutes, which judging from his apparent-to-the amateur-eye ADHD difficulties, was about 9 minutes and forty-five seconds more than he could handle. I noticed him when I heard him tinkering with the big grandfather clock. Oh, man. I’m not allowed to touch the grandfather clock. Nobody is allowed to touch this clock. Just the pastor and one trusted, calm adult friend of his. That’s it.

Thinking he just needs a change of venue, I put him in the living room across from my desk and attempt to continue working. Of course, this living room is filled with delicate antique works of religious art, several GLASS TOP tables and other fine furniture. No LEGO’S, Hi-Lites magazines, Hot Wheels Cars or any other suitable amusements. When the boy is up and wandering the room within 15 seconds I decide to invite him into the front office to color. (Note to self: Bring some better markers and crayolas from home.) That kept him focused for a while.

As he colored, he debriefed me. On everything....
“Does Father --- live here?”Yes.
“Why do they make Fr. --- live here?”It is a benefit of his position. (I wish someone would make me live in a clean beautiful well-organized home with someone else to answer the phones....)
“Do you live here?”No.
“Who else lives here?”The priests.
“Do the Fathers have TV?”Yes.
“Cable?”I thinks so.
“Playstation?”I doubt it. They’re a little pressed for time. And they like to read a lot.
“How big are their rooms?”Never looked. Girls don’t go upstairs. (But I bet they’re bigger than my room at home.)
“Who buys the food?”The office staff. Or the priests.
”What do the Fathers eat” Lots of stuff.
”Does Fr. --- buy any food?”Sure.
“Does Fr. --- shop at the Jewel?”I guess.
“Is this a real plant?”Yes. And please don’t play in the dirt.
“Did you ever eat a bug?”No. Not intentionally.
“A chocolate covered bug?” No. But I did see a show about them on FoodNetwork

I felt like Uncle Buck.
The next child was a second grader. It took me a bit to recognize him, but the look of recognition/terror on his face tipped me off that he had been one of the kids that I worked with during my semester as a second-grade teachers’ aide. So we reminisced a bit. And he colored a nice picture....

What? No "Ubi est latrina?"

Magistra Mundi sum!
"I am the Master of the Universe!"
You are full of yourself, but you're so cool you
probably deserve to be. Rock on.
Yeah, but not so cool that I didn't catch the grammar error until I read the comment box....


Which Weird Latin Phrase Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Thanks, again, to Michelle.

My Specialty!





which art movement are you?

this quiz was made by Caitlin
Link via my Pre-Raphaelite sister Michelle.

Greed is not good.
or
Defining ‘up’ down to earth
Another strange thing about living in affluent ‘burbs: You can be a crook, live in a McMansion, spend like a lunatic and still have the neighbors think you’re just an average guy.

No one answered the door Friday evening at the Carters' new brown brick house, its plantation shutters closed. But visible through huge glass windows above the front door were several large abstract oil paintings hanging on a wall.
The couple's next-door neighbor on Ridge Road, Heidi Denzel, 41, said she was shocked at the charges against the Carters, whom she described as down-to-earth.
"It's not like they lived `Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,'" she said of the couple, both of whom have children from previous marriages.
The Carters hadn't thrown lavish parties and didn't even have a cleaning lady, though they expressed interest in Denzel's house, if she ever sold, as a residence for their children, Denzel said.
The FBI found more than $50,000 in cash in the Carters' house during a search in 2002, according to court records.
The charges alleged the couple lived opulently. They allegedly used stolen funds to buy three luxury autos--a 1962 Corvette convertible, a 2001 Audi TT convertible roadster and a 1995 Ferrari F512M.
They bought an oil painting in an Aspen, Colo., gallery for more than $36,000, decorated their home with a Bosendorfer grand piano and a projection TV system and bought high-end Patek Philippe watches and diamond jewelry, according to court records.

And then there's the "oh s**t" moment when I see the headline and hope that it is no one that I know. And fighting the temptation, as I wait for the article to download, to hope that if it is someone I know, that it is someone I do not particularly care for. It's a little early to set schadenfreude as the tone of the day.

R.I.P. - J.J. Jackson
“C’mon, Bridget. He was one of the first VJ’s on MTV. VEE JAY? Video Jockey? Yeah, there was a time MTV played music - music you could listen to with the children in the room. Of course you heard him......OK, in utero......”

Precisely the reason we planned a homebirth with Eddie....
His four siblings, ages 1 to 9, sang gospel hymns as he drew his first breath, right there in the front seat of the family van. The rain poured outside, but they sang on.
Not exactly sure what the kids would have done, but definitely not singing gospel. (Perhaps The Stars and Stripes Forever.......with eyes shut and fingers stuffed in ears.)

And the C stands for...
cheap.
Now we now the meaning of C in OCP.
I thought it was strange enough that the last shipment of missalettes (Holy Week-Pentecost) was sent media mail and schlepped to the rectory door in 8 weighty boxes by our postal carrier.
Yesterday the June 6-Feast of Christ the King edition arrived. By mail. Shrink-wrapped in bundles of 75. (The less than delighted postal carrier didn't wait for us to find a dolly....he just schlepped them up to the doorway and dropped them.)

Yes, yes. Boxes are expensive and we must try to save the trees. But since we're already creating quite a bit of recycling by hauling away the missalettes 3 times a year, couldn't we have some boxes to facilitate the hauling process? (I have been present for several 'styles' of missalette changing.....ranging from my children being conscripted to do the job in under an hour and a half and leave the church ready for a wedding - to - the priest at Saturday morning Mass asking everyone to change a couple of pews. No matter how you do it, there is a bit of confusion and mess. I can just imagine the fun it will be to do this with no boxes to hold the decommissioned missalettes. Better starting stockpiling spare boxes now.....)

If I only had a few of those million dollar bills...
I'd buy this. And a horse. Or two. And I'd invite you all to visit.

But I wanted to be Lord Byron.......
or Screaming Lord Byron.

You are Lawrence Ferlinghetti! Modern rebel and
owner and proprietor of the City Lights
Bookstore in San Francisco, Lawrence
Ferlinghetti is known for his playful tone and
innovative style. He is MY favorite poet, and
the works of lawrence are always eye-opening
socio-cultural critiques in a light-hearted
tone. He is recognized as one of the most
influential poets of the beat era.


Which famous poet are you? (pictures and many outcomes)
brought to you by Quizilla
Link via the Two Sleepy Mommies whose poets are much more refined than mine.

Nyah, nyah, nyah....
17 out of 20.
Take the TSO St. Patrick’s Day challenge!

ZZ Top Abducted!....
Getting my music news from the Irish Princess is soooo confusing.
Immediately followed by a brief remediation on the difference between 'abducted' and 'inducted.'

So much election night commentary turns into an aural blur.......much like a grown-up talking in a Charlie Brown cartoon. The highlight of the evening was hearing a reporter refer to Democratic Senatorial Primary winner Barack Obama as Osama bin oops......I’m sorry.

Later in the evening I saw an interview with the candidate in which the reporter mentioned the problems his name causes, you know, Osama Obama rhymes with yo’ mama.... Mr. Obama’s agenda is way too liberal for me, but I must give him high marks for being gracious and suffering media fools with much more aplomb than I would.