An end to 2014: Picture/news item of the day XXX

Completed my first full year of grad school...
Got MARRIED...
Pulled off working three jobs at once...a new record of sorts for me...

Here's to the joys and tribulations of 2014. We'll see what shenanigans occur in 2015!

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/12/31/orig-new-years-celebrations-around-the-world.cnn.html

Round Two

Out my window: Wet! If anything, it'll be a sloshy Christmas.

Clothing myself in: jeans, purple long sleeve, burgundy flats, bright mauve scarf

Around the apartment: I had round two of head cold this weekend. Blurg. At least it's out of the way before Christmas...? Anywho, the apartment has gone by the wayside while I've been in an out of sleep all weekend. Matt was awesome though and took care of dishes a lot, so that was super nice :-)

The hubby: Awesome during round two of sickness. He got to attend some friends' Christmas party, and helped out at our church's youth group Advent retreat.

In the kitchen: I did all easy, throw-together meals this week in anticipation for all our events and craziness pre-Christmas (which worked out for me being sick also)...made some sloppy joes, honey barbecue chicken wings, and an awesome crockpot stuffing and chicken recipe we're pretty hooked on.

Crafting: Wrapping/bagging presents??? I did do the ornaments for the youth group room, which turned out great!

Learning: I'm in break, but I've been reading the Jesus of Nazareth books that I *ahem* never quite finished from my summer semester for Theology of Ratzinger. I figure it's appropriate reading for the season in any case.

Reading: See above.

Watching: well, being sick afforded me lots of couch time this weekend...I finished a series I've been watching called Monarchy, (slept through) The Muppet Christmas Carol, watched Hercules, watched Sabrina (love me some Audrey Hepburn), and an episode of The Twilight Zone.
 
Bringing me joy: having our presents all under our tree, looking forward to the Christmas season, our up-coming honeymoon

Thinking about: wanting to feel better and get more last-minute things done around here before Christmas...

Pictures to share:

Oh Christmas tree!

Youth group room ornmaments

More youth group ornaments

 

I felt so productive getting all of these finished.

Validation

Today I went to the doctor, not expecting much...instead, it left me with a lot to ponder!

This was an "establishing primary care" visit, since I'm new here and all. In the course of the physical, the doctor felt my back and immediately pointed out the curvature of my spine.

In truth I've known about the curve in my spine for years. My pediatrician checked now and again, but it was never much cause for concern other than a, "Be careful how you wear your bookbag!" The first time I remember feeling severe back pain was standing on a street waiting for a parade competition in marching band my freshman year of high school. I just couldn't stand in any posture without an intense ache. Through the years the intensity has varied, from not noticeable a good portion of the time to days where nothing I do seems to help my back feel okay except for lying down.

Today the doctor said that it was past the point of correction...it's so far curved that a brace simply won't fix it. All I can do is start with the chiropractor at Matt's work to learn some exercises/stretches that will keep it from getting worse, and to take some scans to see how severe the scoliosis is.

Scoliosis.  So that's the name for my pain. I was texting Matt (since he can't talk over the phone really while he's at work) that at least I feel some validation, like there's a legitimate name and reason for the pain I've been in for the past 10 or so years. Some people living chronic pain are never quite so lucky to have a name to their pain/condition. I think that's why I never talked about it much except for the few people here and there I would tell about my back hurting...so what? Your back hurts? Big deal.

I volunteer at the Center for Practical Bioethics, and while I don't agree morally with all of their stances, I do appreciate their project, PAINS, to connect and aid people living with chronic pain. People need to understand that those suffering with chronic pain are indeed facing a condition of chronic pain, even if there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. I will be living with this probably for the rest of my life, but I hope that on my worst days, people at least take the time to understand that this is real.

(Dis)connection

I was recently at the youth office for the diocese, telling them about the parishes I'm working with and the environment. I made the comment that communication with teenagers is completely impossible. In order to get word out about an event, I have to do everything short of air drop the announcements on their front doors. Some of them have Facebook, but Facebook is dying out with some teenage groups. Some have email, but not all of them check it regularly (yet...just wait till college, mwahahaha). Some have phones, but some still rely on their parents' phones. And bulletins...oh bulletins are so hit and miss. Of course, the other youth ministers with whom I spoke could relate. It's a big issue, they agreed.

I thought the whole point of social media is to make the world more connected...but does it? The whole topic of connecting online via these avenues is completely beside the point to me. What I'm talking about is the vastness that is social media. Seems to me that it's more divisive than anything. I have limited myself to Facebook, Pinterest and this blog, so the whole other worlds of Twitter, Instagram, vines (what in the world are those anyways?), Snapchat, etc. are so overwhelming. Which do you choose? If you go with all of them, you're basically committing your life to be internet-worthy...every moment has to be able to be posted. If you're not on any of them, or on one or two, then you're missing out on the others. I wasn't prepared for youth ministry to be a lesson in figuring out how to reach people, let alone reach them through ministry. I'm constantly having to figure out which avenue(s) to use to post news and events...do I just put this in an email? But what about the kids who don't check...so Facebook too. But a lot of people just don't check their feeds...text it is...but ack, this kid doesn't have a number! Suddenly the same message has to be accommodated to 3-4 different media types at once. Call me old fashioned, but good grief, that is ridiculous! I mean, I'm not THAT far removed from high school, but we used Facebook and bulletins and actually showed up for things. I'm using, as I said, 3-4 different avenues to spread news and still get a handful of kids to show up at the most. Is this a city thing? Was another perk of being from a small town that everybody streamlined their communication?

Sorry, this has just been on my mind lately. Obviously it's something I'm going to have to work through. On a related note, there is a new youth minister retreat tomorrow which I will be attending. I'm super excited, both to network about youth ministry and realize there are others in the trenches with me, and to maybe meet new friends my age??!?! I feel like my friend base/peer group here is slowly but surely shrinking as friends move on to new stages in their lives as well, so I'm really needing to figure out God's plan for me in this...

Advent is here

Out my window: It's pretty darn cold today, but supposed to warm up into the 40s and 50s this week.

Clothing myself in: jeans, hoodie with pink scarf

Around the apartment: We got some awesome church-sized Advent candles, courtesy of Matt's sister. We'll put up a small tree today. I forgot my ornaments at my parents', but luckily Matt has his on hand.

The hubby: He's been awesome while I've been sick. I started coming down with a cold on Thanksgiving morning, and the worst was Saturday night. With my asthma, colds work their way to my lungs quickly, so I slept in our recliner that night so I could be propped up and cough easier. He's pretty awesome about making sure I have whatever I need.

In the kitchen: Ugh, we just got back from Wichita on Saturday, and with being sick I haven't even wanted to think about food prep. I even went so far as to order in pizza last night, that is how much I did not want to step foot in the kitchen. Tonight I'm making a no-fry chicken parmesan dish (I don't have a link for that, it's in my Word documents in my recipe folder.).  I still need to meal plan for the week. I'll take a look at my favorite KC coupon site and go from there :-)

Crafting: Nothing for the youth group room yet, I'll probably get some supplies this week.

Learning: Praise God, it is finals week! While I'm dreading doing the last of the reading, and will take a while to pep myself up enough to start the tests, I'm glad that I know, after this week, I really do have a nice long break.

Reading: Eh, we'll get back to that in about a week...

Watching: a couple more episodes of Lost, a couple of Christmas movies when we were back in GP.
 
Bringing me joy: End of the semester...discernment in our marriage...being back with family...how my youth group got really into the topic of our meeting last night

Thinking about: What to accomplish from my to-do list today...doing some catch-up with volunteer work...what to do for a prayer in Advent...

Pictures to share: Mer...

Two weeks to go

Out my window: The leaves of the tree outside our apartment definitely turned brown in just a matter of days this past week, it seems like.

Clothing myself in: jeans, brown hooded long sleeve shirt

Around the apartment: Still enjoying the couch...still staying within a few feat of the oscillating space heater...

The hubby: We both happened to have three day weekends, and we were lazy. It was great. It's nice to have a few laid-back weekends before the holidays have us traveling more often.

In the kitchen: Last week was kind of a blah week on food...I burned the crushed potatoes, the steak wasn't fantastic, I didn't care for the taste of the pretzel chicken, and the sliders were a pain because the dough was too thin. With the sliders, I used off-brand biscuits instead of Pillsbury, because off-brand. I'm on a budget, people! There are very few things I buy name brand...Matt's juice and toilet paper are about the only ones that come to mind. For real, I think building up the culture of life, being on NFP and wiping about twice as much as anybody else calls for nice toilet paper.

Anywho...sorry about that...I'm still trying to narrow down meals for this next week. At the moment I'm considering crockpost chicken teriyaki, oven tacos for when we hopefully have some friends over for dinner, and tuscan pasta with tomato basil cream (I love how they can make ravioli sound so posh).

Crafting: I'm thinking the first couple of crafts from this blogpost for the youth group room. I'm pretty sure I have Popsicle sticks from previous crafts on hand, so I wouldn't have to buy too much to make this happen.

Learning: Have I mentioned how happy I am that I just have this week, next week, and then finals for this semester? I'm sorry Aquinas, it's not you, it's me.

Week 13 for school is:
                                One and Triune God: The persons in relation to the essence, the persons as compared to the relations or properties, and the persons in reference to the notional acts
                                Christology: Christ's subjection to the Father, Christ's prayer, and the priesthood of Christ

Reading: One and Triune God is making my head swim

Watching: old episodes of Lost and Phineas and Ferb...An Affair to Remember, as I've always wanted to understand the references in Sleepless in Seattle
 
Bringing me joy: Since we moved the futon into the office, I can hang out on that while Matt unwinds after work on his computer. I have a desk, but I'm not much of a desk person at this point in my life. I usually use one when I'm working on genealogy stuff, but that hasn't happened in forever and a day. After graduation...

Thinking about: Hand, Foot, and Mouth have affected my 1yr old room (even an adult), along with staff infection. When we found out about the latter, we cloroxed everything down in there, and played in the 2yr old room instead. I really don't feel like getting sick, thank you...Winter is upon us. Winter is my favorite season, but admittedly for all the more romantic aspects of it (my birthday, my mom's birthday, Christmas, snow, hot chocolate, fire place, snow angels, music). The cold...meh. At least 'tis the season for layering!

Pictures to share:I'll get back to you...

Happy picture: Pro-Life feature XI

Sometimes you just need a happy picture :-)

New sofa!

Out my window: Deceptively sunny. It turned off cold last night with the early "winter vortex" moving in.

Clothing myself in: skinny jeans, BCCHS hoodie

Around the apartment: We got a new couch! It's sooooo nice. I like just looking at it. And it's pretty cool in here because we're newly-marrieds wanting to save money, so we're trying to run the fireplace instead of turning on our heat. I did break down today and turn on my little space heater that I used in college. It's helping a bit :-)

The hubby: We went back to Wichita this weekend for his new niece's baptism. Such a lovely time with his side of the family.

In the kitchen: This week will be simple sliders, honey mustard pretzel chicken, and steaks with crushed potatoes. Last night I made some cappuccino cookies, as it had been a while since we had a homemade dessert on hand. In my excitement to make them, I didn't soften the butter quite enough, so they didn't hold together quite as they should have, but they are still yummy!


Crafting: Nothing this week. I need to think up what to make next for putting in my youth group room, and what to have the youth group make with kiddos for tree-selling. Apparently that's a big fundraiser for the parish, every year they sell evergreens and pretty much everyone in the area gets their real tree from the parish. The youth group will help entertain the kids while parents pick out their trees.

Learning: Week 11 for school is:
                                One and Triune God: The person of the Holy Ghost, the name of the Holy Ghost (Love), and the name of the Holy Ghost (Gift)
                                Christology: Christ's unity of being, Christ's unity of will, and the unity of Christ's operation

Reading: Oh school...

Watching: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (which was nice and light-hearted) and Jane Eyre (which was not so nice and light-hearted...it was creepier and more suspenseful than I anticipated).
 
Bringing me joy: baptized niece...one-year olds playing nicely with each other...

Thinking about: always the balancing time thing...hoping to have our priest over for supper soon to bless our apartment

Pictures to share:

Le new couch.

My husband is back!

I'm feeling like I'm needing a little structure to my random-thoughts posts, so I'm going to borrow this format from Every Day is a Gift and see how it goes!

Out my window: Sunny, mild, and clear skies. After a cool day yesterday, today feels a lot more fall-ish.

Clothing myself in: Mass clothes still...black pants (I usually wear skirts since I wear pants throughout the week and I get super tired of pants, so Sunday is my day to switch things up, but today it's just what I opted for), blue shirt with grey sweater

Around the apartment: I made a bit of a mess while Matt was gone on business, so I cleaned up before he got back, so hopefully it stays that way through this week...homework is always easier to handle when my mind isn't on how much of a destruction zone the living room/dining room have become.

The hubby: just got back yesterday from a business trip to Grand Rapids. He had the night shift, so his sleep schedule has to be readjusted. I went to GP for a wedding of a childhood friend, and when I got back at 9pm last night he had been asleep since 4pm, and still slept through the night. Hopefully today he'll be able to relax and recover!

In the kitchen: I would've gone shopping on Wednesday, as it had been a week since my last shopping trip, but since Matt was gone and I had plenty of leftovers, I decided to stretch out our grocery budget through the end of the month so that I can start fresh this month. Last week I made some chicken tetrazini and cheese-filled burgers with bbq ranch sauce, this week is still in the planning stage, but possibly a crockpot chicken with stuffing and three envelope crockpot roast beef...things are always subject to change, based on what I see in the store for sale/what I know I can make from it.

Crafting: I was going to wear a poodle skirt from 7th grade (that still fits...) for Halloween, but since I knew (a) I wouldn't be with the kiddos during their party (I worked in the afternoon after their nap) and (b) I'd be running errands after work, I opted for comfort and put together a last minute Rosie the Riveter outfit. Does that count? Oh, I did have my youth group help me make some easy fall crafts, and I had pictures on my phone, but then my phone went kaput and the pictures are no more, or at least I have no idea how I would recover them.

Learning: Week 11 for school is: 
                                One and Triune God: The person of the Father, the person of the Son, and "the Image"
                                Christology: "Things which are applicable to Christ in His being and becoming" and the Nativity.

Reading: This list is pretty short usually since I do so much for school, but I did just start Sense and Sensibility, which I skimmed through in high school. I'll also be doing a lit review for volunteering at the CPB on conflict of interest and public/private partnerships in the bioethics field.

Watching: This week with Matt gone I watched a bit more than usual...the last games of the World Series (major bummer, but still proud of them), Fox and the Hound, Sense and Sensibility to go along with my reading, and Grease, along with a couple episodes of the Twilight Zone.

Bringing me joy: Having Matt back, seeing a childhood friend get married, getting asked to be a bridesmaid for another lovely friend, good conversation with my parents who graciously picked me up and brought me back to GP for the wedding

Thinking about: how I can possibly stir interest in my youth group/get them to actually respond to communications so I can effectively plan events, how to balance time, grocery shopping trip looming

Pictures to share: ugh, I never take pictures, so maybe this will spur me to take more pictures, but for now you get nada.

Smiling Mary: Lessons on Mary X

Gothic-style Mary in Cathedral of Toledo...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titles_of_Mary

I am a big fan of this image of Mary ever since seeing it in the Catholicism episode on Mary. It is...pure joy. Jesus playing with Mary, Mary delighting in Jesus. Most often, Mary looks contemplative and prayerful in images, so this is a treat. I remember reading in Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich's visions of Mary's life that she was so modest that she never laughed out loud, but that she smiled gracefully. Whether or not you believe that, we know that Mary had the purest of joy, knowing that her Savior had come. What I did not know, in looking up about smiling Mary, is that there is a small devotion to "Our Lady of the Smile." So there you go!

On being a handmaid with a blog

I was up too late the other night, and almost made another one of those posts. You know, the "word vomit" (I wish there was a prettier name for it) type of posts, where I felt like spilling my guts on all I was feeling, from Facebook news to craziness in my own life.

Aren't you glad I didn't do that?

When I reflect on this blog and why I started it, I remember how people were always using the notes section on Facebook, and as useful as it was, I wanted somewhere more creative and vibrant where I could make long posts that didn't necessarily belong in the status section of FB. I wanted it to be a deeper reflection than what I can put on FB, while at the same time still cautious to be a handmaid of the Handmaid and obviously taking my more private reflections to prayer. It was never a matter of gaining followers, so much as having a place to come to put posts pertaining to the truth and beauty of faith that other individuals on FB that are not of the same faith as I would see and begin an argument.

On nights where I'm up too late, get too tired and moody, and want to tell the world exactly how I feel, I need to be careful to guard myself against those spur of the moment, crazy posts that take on their own life. I know it's my own blog, and I can say what I want, but at the same time, the verse holds true that, "The tongue is also a fire. It exists among our members as a world of malice, defiling the whole body and setting the entire course of our lives on fire, itself set on fire by Gehenna. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. This need not be so, my brothers. Does a spring gush forth from the same opening both pure and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, produce olives, or a grapevine figs? Neither can salt water yield fresh" (James 3:6-12).

In the "blogosphere," we must always be careful that we are using fraternal correction over anger and bullying, and love over petty arguments and jabs. So while I would have loved to tell you all about my rambling thoughts, which were at that point a bit caustic, would that have advanced anyone in holiness? As a handmaid, that must be my primary goal. Sure, things may come out in here in my evaluation of the to-dos of pop culture and daily life, but I must strive for mercy. I think we as Christians, and since it is mostly women that read this, I'll specify further to say that as Christian women, we must seek to show our lives as what they are: messy, irritating, fruitful, and blessed. As much as I want to be a simple handmaid, so often do I complicate things. But to be an effective witness, I think it is absolutely necessary we open up these complicated parts of our lives to grace.

So I will continue to post about how I get into emotional ruts, and my struggles in my vocation, and of course homework, homework, homework...but I do so with the intent of opening up these fragile parts of my life to God's strength, and His will for how to accomplish great things, even in this handmaid.

St. Bruno

1. This saint was never actually canonized: The Carthusians, Bruno's religions order, spurned public displays of honor, but the feast day is still celebrated by the Carthusians, and the feast day was placed in the calendar in 1623.

2. Speaking of the Carthusians, that's the order that Bruno founded with 6 companions in Grenoble, roughly following the rule of St. Benedict.

3. Despite his love for the eremitical life, Bruno was still a popular person, called to Rome to be an advisor to the pope (he begged to go back to his life), and then as an archbishop (which he refused).

Check out more details at catholic.org!

Thankful

I've been noticing a bit of my negativity popping up in my posts lately, and knowing I don't want it to set the tone for forever on this blog, I've decided it's time I list some points in life for which I was grateful today.

1. I have a running to-do list I re-write every day, otherwise things just get lost in the mix. They can be recurrent (homework, volunteer projects) or things specific to the day (choir on Thursdays, volunteering on Tuesdays/Thursdays, grocery shopping usually on Mondays), even the minutest things like trimming my nails or switching over loads of laundry. I promise you, they honestly don't get done unless I have it written down these days. Today, out of my original list of 13 bullet points, I was able to partially or completely mark off 6 of them! God be praised! That is truly a freeing feeling.
2. Food is hit or miss sometimes, but last week was a hit on all three of my main meals through the week, and so was tonight's (an easy chicken enchilada recipe).
3. I've been learning more about my little three personalities in my one year old room, detecting "fake cries," and figuring out how to make them crack up with laughter. It's amazing how putting a rubber snake on your head, pretending to sneeze and making it drop to the floor can elicit the fullest belly laugh from a one year old. Ah, simplicity!
4. I have some really inspiring friends still here in KC from high school and college. While they may not be here as long as Matt and I will be, I'm still grateful that they're close and we can make it through the joys and struggles of studying for grad school together.
5. Matt is a really awesome husband. He's sensitive to my needs. He can be light-hearted and explain Doctor Who to me. One day we will have children, and dynamics may change, but for now I am grateful for growing together in our first year into our vocations as husband and wife.
6.  Is it too terribly trivial to say that I'm super excited for season 4 of Once Upon a Time? We just caught up on all the seasons on Netflix, and I'm excited to keep up with another show.
7. You know when you're looking for a job and nothing pops up, but then you're no longer looking for a job and God dumps a whole bunch of opportunities on you? I started my volunteer job in June, then was able to begin at the preschool in August; my Reditus/Lighthouse CD work finally transferred from Wichita to KC in August, and in the past couple of weeks, I've come in contact with a parish that is rebuilding its ministries and is going to be hiring me on part-time (I mean super part-time, 5-10 hours a week maximum part-time) to be pastoral associate/middle man between priest and parish groups/youth leader/superwoman (okay, not the last part). Um. Woah. My feeling of all that going on is this:  God: *holds out two big handfuls of opportunities cupped together* Here ya go! Me: *looks at Him with a weird look and attempts awkwardly to hold onto all of it* Uh, what do You expect me to do with all of that? God: ;-) You'll figure it out. Me: Riiiiiiight...
8. For reconsecration to Mary. Even if life throughout the year gets crazy in prayer ups and downs, I can count on the reconsecration to stabilize me.
9. This weather. Oh my word, this weather, these temps. Instant mood booster.
10. Riding off of the weather and temps: the return of layering clothes, houses smelling of autumn and baking, the hint of color change in the trees, the humorous explosion of all things pumpkin spice and apple spice everywhere, SCARVES, boots, coziness... I was a bit reluctant to let go of summer--after all, it really is a change from our first season of marriage, so now it feels like we've been married a long time (feel free to laugh, it's alright, I give you permission :-)  )--but I am so appreciating the newness of the season, and what it will bring.

All things Aquinas: Quote of the Day XXXVI

All of my reading this semester is from the Summa. Have I complained about that on here lately? Ugh. Gosh darn, I love Aquinas and what he did for the church, but I'd rather not read 20 pages a week of his craziness which is the Summa. Good grief. This week for class we had an essay for each class due. In typical fashion, I turned them in about 10minutes  before due time (Saturday at 11:59pm EST/10:59pm CST).

On that note, here's something cool Aquinas said:

"Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder."

I tried!

So, if we're friends on Facebook, you saw that I made oh-so-good-looking pancakes. I doubled the batch. They look great. I froze them and pulled some out this week for breakfasts.  And...

They're made with buckwheat flour.

A few weeks back when our flour supply was running low, I had a moment of "No bleached flour for me, I will eat more whole foods!" moment in the store and bought buckwheat flour. Which I have never worked with.

It turns out that buckwheat flour is much more grainy, with a very distinctive earthy taste. And, unfortunately, has not been too much of a hit. I recently made a chicken and biscuits recipe where the biscuits needed self-rising flour. Of course, I'm not one to go out and buy one or two groceries when I believe I can substitute with something else, so of course I used what I had on hand already...buckwheat flour. Well, the biscuits were flat and rather tasteless. I attributed it solely to not having the self-rising and didn't think the taste could have been affected *that* much.

So this week I tried the pancakes, and they were...weird. That strange, earthy taste that comes from the buckwheat.

Sigh.

They look fabulous, they just taste weird.  I tried them again today, this time doused in peanut butter, honey, and chocolate chips, which tasted good but defeated the whole "eating healthier" purpose. (I wonder, in the future is it possible to do a mix of buckwheat and regular flour to make it a bit more whole-grain/"real" food-ish?)

Overall food and meal planning has been a battle for me. With our budget on groceries, I end up having to focus on ingredients for the main entrees each week and haven't been able to branch out to try more side dishes and such, so we mostly just have plain fruits or veggies for sides. And with hubby's much more selective tastes, I really don't experiment too much, which makes it oh-so-hard to look through my Pinterest recipes and recipes saved on my computer and realize that a good number of them are just not going to be made around here.

What do you do to make plenty of good meals that fit your family's taste on a budget? I went to a couponing class recently that suggested having 15 recipes to return to regularly and fill in inbetween with different new recipes, as well as going through coupons/what's on sale in the store and THEN making your meal plan for the week. I welcome more suggestions!  Matt makes a good point of reminding me that we've only been married for a few months, so the fact that I'm no expert is not something that should be causing me so much stress, but when meal planning is consuming so much of my day-to-day life, I know it's something I need to address.

Heading into fall

Life update time!

Marriage: going well! We had a *ahem* rough week last week, between his funny work schedule, my computer and car troubles, and all around moodiness...it was...rough. Yay to a new week! Our September is going to be super busy, so just grateful for any downtime we get together.

Work: I have 3 lovely, spunky, sometimes mischevious one year olds that I watch for a couple hours each morning. I say only a couple hours, even though I work 6:30-10am, because in reality 6:30-7:30 is just watching the preschoolers and grade school kids until my kiddos start trickling in. Then there's breakfast, washing hands/changing diapers/cleaning up food spilt, attempting to herd them towards either the playground or the tumble room unless I really feel brave and try to let them in the classroom the whole time, and then more diaper changing/clean up until the main teacher gets there at 10. They can be stinkers and get the best of me, but their cuddles *do* make up for it, I confess. I wrote my dear friend Emily that this must be God's plan for helping me gain a bit of patience before we have children of our own...not that this is anywhere near parenthood, I know it's only a glimpse in the life, but still...it's definitely revealing of my patience level (or lack thereof).

Volunteering: It goes. I try to stay in the loop, but the doctor kinda does his own thing most of the time and forgets to let me do things for him. I try. I'm more personal assistant than researcher at the moment, which is fine...I just hope some research opportunity comes along at some point.

Le apartment: I'm heading to get my TB test for work, I'll (finally!) post pictures when I return, as I know there was some curiosity from at least one friend about what it looks like here.

...

I'm back! Complete with a nice teensy bump on my arm. Anywho....apartment pictures. From one of those rarest of rarest times that things looked tidy all at once.

The living room

Dining room

Kitchen

Kitchen (admittedly, there is a dirty pot hiding behind the fridge in this picture)

Hallway

Desks. Perpetually cluttered, as I still haven't figured out quite how I want to organize my space.

A closer look at our "prayer corner." Of course, complete with our wedding kneeler :-)

Our bedroom

I was working on a puzzle in the office for a few days.

Our porch. If we're here next summer, I'd like to do some potted plants out here, as long as I can get rid of some of the carpenter bees/wasps that hang around.

We have a fireplace. Whether it's usable or not is quite questionable. I'm not sure I would even want a workable fireplace in an apartment. So, it's kinda covered over. With Bible stand, clock, and an engagement pic :-)

Just have to say that it was after I took these (and the apartment got messy again) that we got our wedding pics in the mail, so those are now adorning our living room :-D.

School: I don't know what gave me the great idea to take two core classes that are taught by the same professor in the same semester, but I wish I hadn't set it up for myself that way. Alas. My classes this semester are One and Triune God and Christology. And the readings for both are questions from the Summa. Great. Nothing like some light reading through the week. (Please understand this is dripping with sarcasm.) Both have summaries due Wednesdays and replies to other students' summaries due Saturdays. With kinda crazy expectations for depth of insight. Oi vey. One more year, one more year...

Matthew 23:13-22: Daily Gospel XXIII

This Gospel passage  is a bit confusing, and I ended up looking up a study on it just to get a little context. Simply, this is directed at false teachers. Perhaps the equivalent I automatically thought of are media sources today, shouting at us about what they consider good and evil, which can be a twisted truth more often than not. Take the treatment of the ALS ice water challenge. It's for a good cause, it's lighthearted, why would you not support this, you heartless person? Perhaps we listeners can learn a lesson as well of standing back and awaiting for the truth to arise. I stood back and neither got involved nor condemned, and then suddenly the whole revelation of the embryonic stem cell research came out. We need to be discerning listeners in a world full of false teachers. We need to be informed and prepared before we try to educate others so as not to lead astray.

Suggestions for one year olds

Calling on the mamas out there (and those of you with more experience with one year olds than me). I'm a preschool aide (yay!) with 3-4 kiddos on my own between the ages of 1 and 2 for about 3 hours in the morning when they're waking up (uhhhh...). Between breakfast and playtime outside there isn't a *ton* of downtime for them, but I want to start getting an idea of what to do with them as far as arts and crafts, numbers, letters/words, sensory, etc etc for times when we do have some free time. I'm so clueless. I've started a Pinterest board to find some good age-appropriate activities, but sometimes those can be pretty involved, more appropriate with being in the home, with one child of that age group, and all those resources at your hands, rather than on the fly with three to four kids around the same age. So, suggestions welcome!!

A Whoosh

Holy jeepers, Batman, is it August already? I feel like I definitely lost this summer a bit. By starting it with a new semester and getting married and ending it with a new job and end of a semester (with new classes soon to follow), I feel like the middle was definitely a whoosh. (Whoosh, n., a blur, a blimp, a blink-and-you-missed-it occurrence.)

Don't get me wrong, a whoosh is fun, but phew, am I ready for a bit of a breather. Gratefully, I have mostly finished a paper on time, it is submitted and ready for peer review. That leaves a project due for this week and a paper for next week. In case you're curious about the goings-on of these papers, the one I finished today was for my Theology of Joseph Ratzinger class (I know, right?? He is so over-my-head intelligent. You read him once and think you get it, only to read him again and realize you're definitely not on his level.) and I wrote it on Ratzinger's view of death and dying as an experience of love and community. The project and paper for the class entitled D. Von Hildebrand and C.S. Lewis on Love are over a book of our choosing and incorporating it into a church ministry of our choosing. I am doing mine over the book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl and how its themes can be used in a pro-life ministry (Frankl describes his experience in Auschwitz and then develops his idea of logotherapy).

Now that I've bored you to tears, I'll update you on the rest of life. We keep busy between Knights events and helping at our youth group on Wednesday nights and me volunteering and starting work next week. Between writing and reading for class I try to keep up with the cleaning and in the evenings I've gotten a bit hooked on Netflix. It's one of those novelty kind of things. I still miss cable a little bit, as that's what I'm used to, but having Once Upon A Time, The Twilight Zone, Saved By The Bell, and 18 and Counting at my fingertips, with no commercials...there's some perks to that. I promise I don't watch all the time. After these papers are done, I have high hopes of finishing reading Candide by Voltaire, working on a jigsaw puzzle, and delving back into genealogy a little bit before the next round of classes hits. My reconsecration starts on Aug. 22nd and ends on Sept. 24th (it so happens to begin and end on Marian feast days), so that'll be directing our prayer life here a bit.

Goodness of married life: date night walking around Matt's favorite store. I might have bored quickly of the computer-ness of it all, but it was nice walking around and having an evening away from the apartment.

The struggles: Papers and homework consuming my life when I procrastinate/rush, leaving housework/living decently generally not done. Oi. Like I said, I'm ready for a fresh semester to start anew.

Picture/news item of the day XXIX

This is really awesome.

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/07/22/pkg-student-uncovers-400-year-old-crucifix.cbc-news.html

P.S. added 07/24: Just found out I received a 94% on my thesis!!!!  With a 94% in the coursework overall, I successfully earned my bioethics certification!  Woot!! Super happy mental dance going on right now in my volunteer office/cubical where it would be unwise for me to do a real happy dance.

Could it be?

Could I really be caught up on homework?  I think I am!  Mostly I can't believe it...mostly I feel like somehow, someway I must still be behind.  Maybe because my prof for the class I was superly behind in hasn't been online this week to comment back on anything.  It took finishing my thesis, one fun Fourth of July weekend, and then a couple of nights of reading to catch up and put in my discussion posts. 

Thesis work was really...really really...rough the last two night of the project.  I finished the paper on the 29th, but then on the 30th I went through and tried to replace some of the less professional citations with more peer reviewed articles, and then had to redo footnotes and citations in the process.  Matt was great and stayed up with me in my cranky, sleep-deprived state that night/morning finishing it up.  I still get nervous even at the thought of ever seeing a grade on that thing.  I really don't want to know what I got, so long as I pass at this point.

Fourth of July weekend was fantastic.  Matt's bro, sister-in-law, and two wonderful little girls spent 4 days (well, 3.5 days, technically) with us.  We took the girls to a fireworks display, walked for part of a day in Weston, MO, sent the parents on a date night while we spoiled the girls with popsicles and games like hide and seek and Hungy, Hungry Hippo, went to Mass, shared some wonderful meals, and stayed up late talking about life.

After they left, I spent a couple nights doing my readings.  Part of the reason I was having trouble catching up in one class is because, in the effort to save money, Matt and I went for the Kindle version of some of my required texts.  Because the prof for that class gives assignments in page numbers, I have been trying to figure out what those page numbers correspond to in the text since Kindle does away with the page numbers.  Oy.  Again, I'm finding it hard to believe I could be caught up.  Blowing my mind at the moment.

My volunteer job has been going alright.  As a secular bioethics institution, it has been interesting to be pointed out a time or two as a Catholic.  The Center and the National Catholic Bioethics Center, through whom I had my bioethics courses, disagree on whether to use TPOPP, a type of advanced directive.  I'm not in a position where I have to deal with that at all, thank goodness, and while I don't know whether my future lies with the Center due to the disagreement, I am thankful for the new experiences and opportunities to get my feet wet in my hopeful career field and meet some very influential people in this field.  I had the opportunity to meet with a doctor and a director of an institutional review board recently over coffee.  Last evening I was able to go to a consortium of various ethics panels participants from area hospitals.  I'm involved in research of completely new topics to me in bioethics and I'm learning so much.

I haven't announced on here up to this point, but in August I will be beginning a position as a preschool aide with our parish early ed center.  It will be during the week from 6:30am-10am, so a rather early morning, but it's a nice paid job, and it will leave my evenings free to volunteer, clean, and cook, so I look forward to this new adventure in my life.  I'm desperately awkward around little kids, I never thought I was very good at babysitting, so this will be another opportunity for growth.

Song recommendation of the day XXXIV

I recently had the chance to visit my friend who is a postulant with the School Sisters of Christ the King, and keep coming across songs that were "her songs" from our mixed CDs my friends and I would make for our long car trips together.  I miss her and the fellowship of college.  This weekend we've had the chance to have Matt's bro and his family with us, and the late nights staying up and talking about life has reminded me about that wonderful time of my life spent at college.  So this is a bit of a throw-back for me.

I feel sorry for my husband

It's thesis time.  Or rather, "I've had this project since March, it's due on July 1st, but in between getting married, job searching, and getting married, I've let the thesis go by the wayside and so in the next few days I have 7 more pages to write (I'm on page 8), sorting out sources, oh and running it by my advisor for the paper that I haven't spoken with since she redirected my thoughts on my Philly trip and I haven't followed up since then"-time.

(Maybe a bit of PG-13 content below this line.)

And the topic doesn't really lend itself to being cheerful or me wanting to spend prolonged amounts of time with it.  My thesis goes something like this:  Pornography and subsequent masturbation has been causing increases in erectile dysfunction and decreasing sperm quality, and therefore is perpetuating the need for couples to seek out fertility treatment in the form of IVF.  Eradicate pornography=eradicate a large, secret problem that is fueling the "need" for IVF.

Thing is, no one wants to talk about the issue, or they think anti-porn advocates are making it too simplistic by saying "Death to porn!" because ED is a multi-faceted issue.  Despite the fact that ED for men under 40 is at a record high.  So I'm meeting the nay-sayer on their territory in this paper, and examining all the factors that go into porn addiction/masturbation (depression, internet addiction, etc) that all, by themselves, could be causes for ED...put them together in viewing pornography and subsequent masturbation, and it's bad news bears.  Again, though, no one wants to talk about it, so finding legitimate, peer-reviewed articles has been awful.  Or the titles of said articles are deceiving; one entitled something the effect of Masturbation Leads to Guilt ended up being about how the psychologist helped the man wipe out the shame of the issue (rather than encouraging him just to GIVE UP PORN) and rehabilitated him.  Yeah, there's a good idea--ignore the real issue and just make him feel good about himself!

So this week is much more...lazy on my end.  Dressing up less.  Having fewer home-cooked meals waiting for Matt when he gets home from work.  Neglecting some chores.  Playing more episodes of Merlin in the background.  Shamefully Shamelessly letting my healthy eating habits disintegrate. Two 24-oz of coffee yesterday decided to kick in at 2:30...am.  This morning.  Wide awake.  I can't say that I like this at all.  That first taste of feeling like I'm failing at this whole wife thing.  I know we'll each go through rough patches where one of us will be giving more and the other needing/taking more.  I just don't like being on the needing/taking more end of things.  It's not a very nice place to be.  I want to be super-wife, writing her super awesome thesis while having pork chops ready, clothes washed, volunteer work completed, and time at night for snuggles and catching up on our days.  Right now, not so much.  The time between now and July 1st is going to be very...awful.  Luckily that next weekend I should have recovery time.  But for now...July 1st is sneaking up and I'm running out of hours in my days.

Life as we know it

This time tomorrow I will probably be through with a very important interview.  I'm interviewing at the Center for Practical Bioethics here in KC.  It may be a volunteer position...or it may be a paid position of being a personal secretary of sorts for a neurologist who splits his time between Duke University and the Center, so I'd be keeping his schedule and arranging his meetings here.  Um, yeah.  That would be cool.  Especially considering it *actually* has to do with my master's degree. Prayers please!

Things are finally settling into a nice groove here.  Still trying to straighten up here and there, but this weekend we tackled the office (that is, the room where I was throwing everything I didn't want to organize yet from the other rooms I was cleaning), and we got myself a desk so I could organize my items, so all in all everything feels much better around here.  Now about those wedding thank yous and homework (I DID catch up on homework this weekend, there's just a different 15-20 page thesis I've been avoiding)....

Also, I will say I'm hooked on an already-finished show that I'm just now catching up on.  The Adventures of Merlin was a BBC show on for five seasons starting back in 2008ish, and I had some friends through FOCUS that LOVED it (and Matt watched it already too and I never realized it.  Man.  So behind the times.).  I'm in the first few episodes of season 2.  It's good, wholesome, has plenty of adventure and fairy-tale...probably not quite for kiddos, but I could see it as a good show for pre-teens, as most of the cast at the time were late teens, early twenties.  It's just so much better than American shows...evil is destroyed, good is rejoiced over, romances are subtle, or if they are blatant then they're very gallant and chivalrous...  That makes my only 3 shows I watch all BBC (Sherlock, Downton Abbey, and Merlin).  There are the occasional episodes of House I'll watch, but that's more Matt's show at the moment. 

Good/Funny things about marriage:  Matt thinks my reflection in the mirror looks funny.  Since he's not used to seeing it, he thinks it looks different and swears there's a certain tilt to my mouth that isn't there otherwise...at which point he jokes that I'm stroking.  What a goofball. 

Difficult things about marriage:  We have different ideas of how Saturdays go.  His family apparently starts the day early, gets stuff done...my idea of a Saturday is that it's the weekend, so I'll get to doing things, but in a slower manner.  We started our first normal Saturday earlier than I'm used to and later than he really wanted to, but we got lots of errands accomplished, including the office space.  Just one of those things where we'll need to learn to compromise.

New things learned in marriage:  Matt's made friends with several of the men in his Knights council, and the Grand Knight and his wife graciously took us out to eat on Sunday.  It was one of those realization moments of being "adult"--our peers are now our parish family, and in their 40s on up.  What?  When did that happen?  Crazy.  I liked it, it was really nice, just a different experience for me.

Dawwwwww: Pro-Life Feature X

A little happy baby video for you today:  A Father Gets Into His Fussy Baby's Crib to Calm Her Down

I'm back!

Back and married and better than ever!  Consider this the newly-wed edition of my blogposts :-).  Yes, it has been a whirlwind.  No, the wedding day really didn't go as quickly as other people talk about theirs going.  Yes, being married is fun.  No, we didn't go on a honeymoon (yet) due to conflicts in schedule.

Mostly I've been working on organizing and cleaning the apartment...I kind of wrecked it with all my stuff + wedding gifts when I moved in, and I really really really do like cleanliness or at least neat clutter, so I've been trying hard the past couple of weeks to keep at the piles and keep cleaning until my tidy-loving little heart is satisfied.  At the moment I'm taking a break from my project of deep cleaning the kitchen, dining room, and living room area in anticipation for a couple of guests this evening for wedding leftovers!

I've been fitting in job searching and homework where I can, and will be focusing on that more next week since the apartment is finally looking in order.  I had an interview for a hospital position, but the hours weren't what I thought they were going into the interview and are super wacky, so despite having a really positive interview experience I'm gonna keep on looking and hopefully get back in the swing of things with my on-commission job that I started at the beginning of last summer.  Prayers for a parish position or a not-super-wacky-hours hospital position or something else to come along my way would be greatly appreciated.  And school, well, I do need to refocus on that and get to workin' on a couple of big paper projects.

All in all, here's a bit about married life so far:

The best things about being married: someone to open difficult packaging for me; laughing with each other about silly daily occurrences; opportunities for serving and sacrifice

Difficult things about married life: meal planning with two different food tastes; finding time between work, homework, and organizing/cleaning to just sit and appreciate that we're actually married; budgeting for two people instead of just myself

Things I've learned: don't...no, really don't do it!...go shopping on an empty stomach; apartments make different noises than houses; there just is not enough space in an apartment, and creativity is not my strong suit...I foresee some Pinterest ideas being used in the near future to figure out how to utilize space

Well, gotta keep going with the cleaning!

Out of Order

I usually try to keep to my regular routine of posts, but seeing as this is going to be an abnormal week, I figure I can just go with whatever for right now.  Here's some songs, quotes, and other goodness I'm going to be filling my week with.

"The Sabbath is the goal of creation, and it shows what creation is for. The world exists... because God wanted to create a zone of response to his love, a zone of obedience and freedom" (Jesus 1, 83). (I'm taking a class on the Theology of Joseph Ratzinger.  This man is so. awesome.)

"With God's help and blessing, we will do all we can to make our new family a little cenacle where Jesus will reign over all our affections, desires and actions.... We will be working with God in His creation; in this way we can give Him children who will love Him and serve Him."--St. Gianna 

In which I try to be "swag"

I get a kick out of all these graduates posting about old memories, new beginnings, the people they're leaving...even if they're not graduating and just moving on a grade, it's all *SUMMER VACATION HOLLLA!* and I'm here going, "Yeah, summer semester already started online, I have at least three assignments this week, plus a research paper due in July from a Spring semester course, plus I'm getting married.  In two weeks.  Come at me bro!"

Maybe minus the "Come at me bro!" part.  Because in real life, I have no swag.

But really.  Life.  It's happening.  I have 4 totes sitting by the door waiting to go up to KC this evening because I really don't feel like rushing the week before and after the wedding to move up, so I'm going in spurts and bombarding the guys' apartment with clothes.  I *know* they'll appreciate me doing this later on...until then, they get to live with my totes slowly choking out their space until we're able to organize better.

Anyways, rewind a bit.  Philadelphia trip went *very* smoothly.  I was a little freaked out about flying by myself again, but managed to navigate the airports like a champ and my bro was able to get into the hotel and pick me up that Friday evening.  Saturday he drove me to my grad school conference.  The NCBC is actually this huge, gorgeous, early 1900s house...crown molding, swirling staircase, the works.  We had two different hour-long sessions of "stump-the-ethicist".  I met a permanent deacon from the Archdiocese of KCK during our lunch break!  Then we broke into small groups for mock ethics panels (in which I actually contributed.  Surrounded by nurses and doctors and I actually contributed.  Be still my beating heart.).  Right after those we wrapped up the day with 10-min. individual interviews with our small-group moderators.  In which I actually did well.  Yaaay!  Jake and I then drove to the St. John Neumann shrine (!!!!!!) and went to Mass in the attached church, St. Peter's.  And then tried to find a Chinese restaurant that ended up not existing (this is why I distrust GPS), and ended up eating at a Ruby Tuesday's.  Next day I once again managed to not get lost at the Dallas airport.

This week I've been working on small wedding projects I've been procrastinating on or just haven't been able to do much with up to this point.  I already feel like these next two weeks hardly exist.  Hellllooooo wedding time!

May Crowning: Lessons on Mary IX

From http://minmaxsunt.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/humilitatem-ancillae/

 Wow, you all.  This is an AWESOME resource about May crowning, and how to celebrate the month of Mary:  May, Mary's Month, Marian Coronation.  Out of all the mysteries we pray in the rosary, I particularly love the Coronation...all the others had specific points in time, but, if you think about it, we're living in the time of the Coronation right now.  How awesome is that?!

P.S.  If you could please send up a prayer (or, you know, a whole rosary...or two...) for me this weekend, I'm flying out tomorrow for Philadelphia for my second bioethics weekend, this time with graded mock ethics panel and 10-minute individual presentation before the NCBC panel.  I'm freaking out slightly stressed over it.  Our Lady, Star of the Sea, pray for us!

Child-like

Sitting in church before Mass last evening, I started reflecting on how very adult my life is becoming.  Up to this point there have been baby steps to adulthood:  cosigning on my car and student loans, getting engaged, having a full time job.  In about a month, there will be a sudden rush of adulthood:  switching my last name on everything, really actually truly moving out...the marital act.  There was a rush of feeling as though I was losing a lot of my innocence of life.  Earlier in the day I had had some music on in the car from a Steubenville trip in high school.  I remember at the time how still so very excited and young I was in faith, and how much my heart would soar with the music when I would hear it and leap into God's arms.  It doesn't quite have the same effect anymore, and I again felt a certain disconnect, as though I was losing touch with that part of me that was much simpler, innocent, and child-like.

At the same time, I started thinking on the connection to this beautiful feast of Divine Mercy.  The misericordia of God...recognizing my lowliness, reaching up to God as a little child trusts in its mother, nuzzling close to the breast and feeding on the milk of God which is life-giving...the food of God in the Eucharist.  Divine Mercy reminds me that I can still be as a trusting, innocent child.  I need to snuggle close and hide myself in the heart of Jesus, knowing He is my only shelter from the changes and whims of the world. 

From http://pilgrimsprogresspddm.blogspot.com/2012/12/resting-on-heart-of-jesus-feast-of-st.html

There's a quote that floats around on the internet, attributed to a Kimberly Jones, that says, "Don't let people pull you into their storms.  Pull them into your peace."  In a certain sense that's the attitude that I want to have for the next month, except that it's really more that I don't want to be pulled into the world's sense of accomplishment, but instead I want to wrap the world into the Sacred, Merciful Heart and keep an attitude of trust in how God is moving in the changes happening in my life.

Saint Anselm

 

1. St. Anselm had a streak of rebellious years in his youth after his mother passed away.

2.  He is (probably) the originator of the ontological argument for the existence of God.

3.  St. Anselm got himself into hot water more than a few times, facing two exiles and having disagreements with the royalty.

Read more at Catholic Online!

As Is

I haven't written in a while.  I usually try to write within 9 days, but I just haven't had the motivation or the "material" (ha!).  Life is work, wedding planning, and the occasional work-out and PSR class.  There have been no major prayer or faith thoughts.  If there's such a thing as a pre-wedding rut before the crazy sets in, I'm in it.

It's good to remember at times like this when my life doesn't seem good enough to blog about compared to anyone else, it's ok.  This began as a creative outlet for me to get outside the confines of Facebook, and it still is my creative outlet. 

Here's been a few of my more exciting moments lately:

• I bought my own CCC, along with CCC tabs and Bible tabs for my everyday study Bible.  Possibly one of my best purchase decisions of all times.  Although incredibly time consuming, especially on the Bible.
• This past weekend I drove out of GP at 5:30am on Sunday, spent the day knocking out a couple of pre-wedding projects with Matt, along with taking up a carload of bridal shower gifts and my first tote of my stuff to leave up there (one of those oh-my-gosh-this-wedding-is-actually-happening things), and drove back at 7:00pm.  It was a long day, but I'm getting a little burnt out on switching from one friend's house to another for spending the night up there.  Reason #97 to be excited for being married...one place to stay in KC all. the. time.  
• Bridal shower!  Beautiful, lovely bridal shower, that my maid of honor/cousin, her mom, and another couple of aunts put a lot of time, love and lovely decorations into.  And it was such a blessing that some friends traveled quite a way to come.  I really hope everyone enjoyed themselves.  And, this is one project I *am* proud of, I wrote all my thank-you's in a week.  It was my morning project for a few mornings before I went to work.  Here's to having the same motivation post-wedding.
• After Easter I'm covering the topic of Purgatory with our high school PSR class.  And I'm nerdily excited about it.  I've spent mornings mentally going over what I learned in my Virtue and Character class when reading Dante's Purgatorio from his Divine Comedy, and things that St. Faustina said about souls suffering and God's mercy.  And I just realized this isn't something that's happened lately, but it just goes to show how excited I am for it to happen.

Trying times: Quote of the Day XXXV

"Christ and Lord, you are leading me over such precipices that, when I look at them, I am filled with fright, yet at the same time I am at peace as I snuggle close to your Heart.  Close to your Heart, I don't fear anything. In these trying times, I act as a little child supported in its mother's arms. When it sees anything menacing, it clutches its mother's neck more firmly and feels secure."--St. Faustina

Sickie

I share a little too well around here.  I got rather sick early in February, and passed it on to my mom and dad.  I *thought* I had some type of allergy problem on Wednesday, except I had body aches which I attributed to my attempt at a stationary bike at the Y the day before and was switching from reallllllly hot to realllllllly cold.  Seriously, one moment I was sweating, the next my fingertips were blue...whaaa?  When I got home that evening, I went straight to bed...didn't hardly even say hi to my parents!  The only contact I had was with my mom when she handed me some Sprite and tucked me into bed (Yeah, I have a pretty fantastical mom, I know :-)  ).  Well, as it turns out, my dad came home from work early yesterday with...headache, body aches, and chills, all of which I had, though I also had sinus pressure/congestion/drainage and a cough which I don't think he had, or if he did he didn't have that part of things nearly as severely.  This morning my cough appeared to have settled nicely into my lungs, just like when I was sick in February, so it was decided I should stay home today. 

I'd like to say I've been productive, but when it feels like my entire sinus cavity is filled with no sign of relief, it's hard to stay focused on anything worth while for very long.  I've definitely broken my Lenten resolution of "Waste no time! No silly things on the computer!  Do purposeful things first before silly things of that sort!" today.  Mea culpa...?

Anywho, so that's me right now...sickie.  With not a ton to do...and yet several tiny little projects I know I should focus on.  I *did* fill out my NCAA bracket.  No worries, I don't go in for guts and glory.  I pair up the mascots and decide who I think would win in a mascot show down.  I think I maybe get a little carried away in my reasoning a bit.  Since I'm sickie and have all the time in the world at the moment, I can even tell you...

South 1st Round: Gators vs Great Danes...Gators are definitely going to win against a dog, sorry...
                             Buffaloes vs Panthers...Panthers are stealthier
                             Rams vs Lumberjacks...Lumberjacks can use their axes to sweep the rams out of the way of the trees they need to get to
                             Bruins vs Golden Hurricane...I think my reasoning this morning was that a bear can hunker down against a storm and wait for it to pass
                             Buckeyes vs Flyers...Flyers can swoop up in the sky and dive bomb
                             Orange vs Broncos...is there even a competition there?  Bronco will tear through the oranges!
                             Lobos (wolf) vs cardinal...wolf tears bird to shreds (I promise I'm not usually such a violent-minded person....just when it comes to this)
                             Jayhawks vs Colonal:  The jayhawk is technically a mythical bird, so I don't think a Colonal would know what to do with himself.
East 1st Round:  Cavaliers vs Chanticleers...I respect Coastal Carolina for choosing a mascot from classic literature....but in this case, the Cavalier is going to win.
                            Tiger vs Colonials:  Colonials haven't seen a tiger in their lifetime.  They wouldn't know what to do, and muskets are awful for aiming (I told you, I spend a tad too much time thinking this through)
                            Bearcats vs Crimson:  Bearcats are stealthier
                            Spartans vs Blue Hens (seriously?  a blue hen?)...THIS IS SPARTA!!!
                            Tar Heels vs Friars...Friars with their awesome friarness win this round
                            Cyclones vs Eagles...Cyclones can pull an eagle out of the air
                            Huskies vs Hawks...Huskies can pounce
                            Wildcats (Villanova) vs Panthers...ok, a *little* bit of my K-State bias may be coming out here...Wildcats win
West 1st Round:  Wildcats (Arizona) vs Wildcats (Weber St.)...What do I do in a case where the mascots are the same?  I'm so glad you asked...base it on favorite colors between the two schools, of course!  And since Weber State comes fairly close, Weber St. Wildcats it is.
                            Bulldogs vs Cowboys...cowboys can lasso and ride in circles around the bulldogs
                            Sooners vs Bison...it's match-ups like these that make doing the bracket in this way so fun...when the mascots actually probably were matched up against each other at some point or another.  Sooners killed the bison.
                            Aztecs vs Aggies...Sadly, the Aztecs just plain had more primitive weaponry
                           Bears vs Cornhuskers...dear Matt's family...I still really like you and want to be part of this family...but bears would probably just run right through a corn field and eat everything...including the husker...
                            Blue Jays vs Cajuns...I feel like back porch blue jay shooting might fit in a cajun's evening schedule (man, I'm an awful person...please don't take any of this seriously.  Please.)
                          Ducks vs Cougars...Ducks didn't stand a chance...they just can't waddle away fast enough
                          Badgers vs Eagles...Eagles can be quite stealthy and predatory, and badgers just don't come across to me as being as aggresive.
Midwest 1st Round:  Shockers vs Mustangs...I'm very proud of the Shockers, and again you have to take this with a grain of sand...but mustangs would buck their way through a wheat field, and possibly buck a harvester too...
                                  Wildcats (Kentucky) vs  Wildcats (Kansas State)...I just can't help it...EMAW!  Go State!
                                  Bilikens vs Wolfpack...for as long as I've been trying to ask people from St. Louis what a Biliken is, *they* can't answer me straight...but I think in any case, a wolfpack would win
                                  Cardinals vs Jaspers...Jaspers, only because it was a really cool dude that the mascot is based on...
                                 Minutemen vs Volunteers...in this case I had to look up both mascots to take a look and see...the mascot for Tennessee is technically a coon hound...a minutemen would be giving orders to a hound...
                                Blue Devils vs Bears...I very rarely let a devil mascot win...Bears it is.
                                Longhorns vs Sun Devils...case in point, Longhorns win
                                Wolverines vs Terriers...Wolverines are more ferocious

South 2nd Round:  Gators vs Panthers...Panthers would be able to run around a gator, it would also be stealthier
                               Lumberjacks vs Bruins...bears are bigger, more intimidating
                               Flyers vs Broncos...Flyers can once again swoop up and dive bomb
                               Lobos vs Jayhawks...Lobos just look plain ferocious...sorry birdie
East 2nd Round:  Cavaliers vs Tigers...A cavalier wouldn't know what to do with a tiger...
                             Bearcat vs Spartans...THIS IS SPARTA!!!
                             Friars vs Cyclones...Friars are cool, but they're human and can get swept up in a cyclone.
                              Huskies vs Wildcats (Villanova)...Wildcats sound like more ferocious creatures
West 2nd Round:  Wildcats (Weber St.) vs Cowboys...Wildcats would eat up the cowboys in their sleep
                              Sooners vs Aggies...oooooh verrrry similar match up here, but in this case I chose to stick with closer to home, so the Sooners take it
                              Bears vs Cajuns...Bears are stronger, more intimidating
                              Cougars vs Eagles...I can imagine a cougar winning a fight in the end
Midwest 2nd Round:  Mustangs vs Wildcats (Kansas State)...perhaps a little bias again...EMAW!
                                    Wolfpack vs Jaspers...Wolfpack would surround the poor guy
                                    Minutemen vs Bears...Bears are bigger
                                    Longhorns vs Wolverines...wolverines would sneak up and surround the slower moving cattle
South Sweet Sixteen:  Panthers vs Bruins...Bears have thicker skin, can crush the panthers if they're big enough
                                    Flyers vs Lobos...the Flyers have had air on their side up until now, but Lobos are also a little maniacal, so they jump on the wings of the planes, and well, Lobos win
East Sweet Sixteen:  Tigers vs Spartans...THIS IS SPARTA!!!
                                 Cyclones vs Wildcats...yes, even poor wildcats lose to the weather...
West Sweet Sixteen:  Wildcats (Weber St.) vs Sooners...The wildcats sneak up and surround the sooners at night
                                   Bears vs Cougars...Bears are stronger, can crush the cougars
Midwest Sweet Sixteen:  Wildcats (Kansas State) vs Wolfpack...yup, clearly bias.  EMAW!
                                         Bears vs Wolverines...obviously I think a great deal of bears' strength.  Bears will crush the smaller wolverines
South Elite Eight:  Bruins vs Lobos...Wait, what?!  A bear team has been taken down!  By those crazy Lobos...
East Elite Eight:  Spartans vs Cyclones...THIS IS...wait, the Spartans don't have basements!  Cyclones swoop up the Spartans.
West Elite Eight:  Wildcats (Weber St.) vs Bears...Wildcats...I just can't help it...
Midwest Elite Eight:  Wildcats (Kansas State) vs Bears...Wildcats...EMAW!
Final Four:  Lobos vs Cyclones...Cyclones swoop up the crazy lobos
                    Wildcats (Weber St.) vs Wildcats (Kansas St.)...K-State, all the way!
Championship game:  Cyclones vs Wildcats (Kansas St.)...Willie is too quick for that cyclone ;-)  He's used to the Kansas weather.