An Open Letter to Junior High Girls

Dear Ladies,

I know that you do not want to be shopping for school uniforms. You have made that abundantly clear. But here's a news flash - I betcha that your mothers and grandmothers don't want to shop for school uniforms either, yet they smile and chat pleasantly and have to apologize for your behavior. You are embarrassing. You embarrass your mothers and yourselves but you are too self-absorbed to notice that. You are so concerned about what your peers may think of you, that you don't stop to consider that the rest of the world thinks you look sullen and ill-tempered. Let me tell you something girls, your friends, the ones that you are so obsessed with impressing, are too concerned about themselves to spare you a thought. So take some advice from this grandma: Stand up straight, quit rolling your eyes, smile and stop sighing loudly. The world will love you for it. And so will your mothers.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

Love ya anyway,
Me

I am excited

If you look at the sidebar to your right, you will notice a badge for the Catholic Company. I am now an Official Product Reviewer. I have a couple of blogging friends who do this and I debated about joining for some time. Last night, I decided to bite the bullet and just do it. Every 6 weeks or so, I will be allowed to peruse their new products list and choose one item to be sent to me to review. I will need to publish my review on this blog and provide a link on their Reviewer Center. Then I will be eligible to choose another book. Now I am so excited that I can hardly wait for my first book to arrive! Take a look at their website and browse all of the items available. They carry a lot of stuff!

As someone who works in a small, local retail Catholic store, don't forget to patronize your local stores as well as these wonderful websites. The important thing is to buy stuff at BOTH locations and make everyone happy! : )

And because it's been a whole week . . .

Here's a picture of Kara in her baptism gown.

Our Mini-Vacation

About an hour and a half southeast of us is a small Amish community. We like to go there every so often to shop! The handmade oak furniture is breath-taking and we have bought two desks, an end table, a desk chair and a hickory rocker there over the years. We didn't make the trip last year since gas was over $4.00 a gallon. Now that is is significantly lower, we decided to go last Thursday. We packed a picnic lunch, picked up our eldest daughter and off we went. The weather was perfect - low '80's and no humidity. We hit the main street stores in Arthur and then headed out on the back roads to see what we could see. It is hay-making time and we were fortunate enough to see several crews out in the fields. If you click on the above picture, you should be able to see it in more detail.

The Amish fascinate me. They truly live their faith - in a very visible way. With their unique dress, the lack of electricity and gas-powered vehicles, in many ways they live the way our grandparents and great-grandparents lived. I admire that. Of course because I am me, I also wish that they all could be Catholic -LOL - but I respect their beliefs. I also admire them because it seems that they live their lives as a tourist attraction. Everywhere they go and whatever they do, they have to dodge the tourist's pointing fingers and cameras. We tried to be unobtrusive and avoid taking pictures of their faces, but even so, to know that the "English" world finds them an oddity must annoy them from time to time. It would me.

On this trip, we found some Amish markets on the side roads. We bought bacon and fudge (OH MY!!!) and pumpkin butter. We bought black bean salsa, maple syrup and blue popcorn (which is very good - a little different from the stuff we usually pop, but very good). We got ice cream cones at one market. We bought two hot dog roasting forks (for our campfires) at our favoritel store in downtown Arthur. Every one we met was friendly and helpful. It was a delightful trip.
So until we go again, we have some good memories of a gentle people.

Her First Sacrament

Kara was baptized today. Since our church is undergoing a major construction project, Mass is held in the school cafeteria. Could you tell? Well, the surroundings may not have been beautiful, but the baptism certainly was. Kara was perfect - she slept through most of it, but even when she woke up, she didn't cry. Deacon Mark baptized her. He is so sincere and earnest. He even teared up at time or two. (as a side note, please pray for Deacon Mark's wife. She is undergoing treatment for breast cancer now in hopes that the tumor will shrink enough for surgery.)

Afterwards, Charles and Kim held a party at their house for everyone. It was nice to see so many people there. Kim's family is great and we were so happy that Jim's brother and sister-in-law came too. Even my son-in-law's mother came! It was a lovely day, made to order with perfect weather on top of everything else. God is good.

Well!

Happy Blogoversary to me. 2 years of blogging under my belt.