snot funny

So... stopped in briefly at the Loves on Saturday after a long LT training day and dinner... Tony Moe wanted to read stories before I left, so we sat down on the couch, side by side, each with our own book. As we were "reading" i looked over to notice his finger almost two knuckles up his nose- lovely- I asked nonchalantly, "Whats up there?"


Anthony responded, also nonchalantly, "Um, boogers."


Me: "okay..." and we went back to our books, commenting on things we found interesting as we read through the books. A few minutes later...


Anthony: "Snot tastes good."


I thought I had heard wrong, sometimes its hard to tell with toddlers, but no, the laughing from his parents and translation confirmed that he did just tell me that snot tastes good. No comment from Aunt Reenie on that one :D

Priesthood

On Saturday, we had a Core Member University (CMU) at CTK, which is a training day for core members. There were several parishes represented and it was a good day. Lisa from national LT was there speaking to us, and though I've heard most of it before, it was a good shot in the arm, a good reminder of how important this work is, and to never be satisfied with mediocrity in the ministry. It was interesting to hear different parishes share and many had questions about working with their priest, convincing him to take time for their teens, etc. I was reminded of what a blessing we have in Fr Ed, who is committed to the teens and just loves them to death! He is 100% behind youth ministry, our LT program, and most of all, our teens. How often do we stop to thank him and really appreciate what a gift he is, rather than criticizing him for his humanity? On Sunday night, Fr Ed did a stump the pastor night with the teens, where they write down questions and he sits and answers them. It is amazing to see a room full of 75 teens, hanging on every word he says. They love him and know that he loves them - he takes time for them, believes in them, teaches them the truth, and just absolutely loves them. What a gift!

After the training day, I was talking with a friend about a situation in a nearby parish and the priest being resistant to God's work there. He'd like things to remain safe and in a nice box, and God clearly has other plans. As we were talking, it hit me like a brick wall, God is working on this priest and Satan wants to thwart that. And rather than berating the priest or recounting his shortfalls, it is our job to pray for our priests, our pastors, other priests that serve us, all priests and clergy. Those guys are on the front lines of the battle, and clearly Satan wants to take out the guys that bring us Jesus.

Yesterday was priesthood day (not sure what the official title is) in the diocese of Lansing. Fr Ed's homily touched on the reasons Christ the King is leading the nation for seminarians- why is it? Jesus. Families who are committed to Christ in His Church and are evangelizing their kids from day one. Life Teen and a strong commitment by the parish to foster faith in our young people. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our area and upon our parish. I am again just so thankful to be where I'm at, in this place, this parish, this region, where God is clearly working. There are certainly challenges, as with anywhere, but what a blessing to see some of the fruits of God's work in our young men being so open to the call to priesthood.

And it didn't stop there! This morning the priest scheduled for the 6.45 Mass didn't show up, so Dcn Bill who just happened to be there today, did a Communion service. Dcn Bill S, a 70-year old man from our parish, who, after his wife died, was called to the priesthood. Although I can't say I'm particularly close to this guy, I absolutely love him! For as long as I can remember, he has a ready smile and always served the parish constantly in so many areas. It has been such an inspiration to see him answer God's call to priesthood, when other men his age (including the priests) are retired and taking it easy, Dcn Bill is in seminary and just a few months from ordination. In fact, the bishop of Saginaw, where he will be ordained, even gave him a parish to begin caring for, although he cant be named pastor officially until his ordination. He is a man full of joy and full of the love of God! What a faithful servant, willing to lay down his life, his plan to do God's work. And what an inspiration to me to continue to serve the Lord in the little things He is calling me to.

I encourage all of you- and mostly myself- to pray for our priests, to thank God for the gift of the priesthood, to pray protection on each of them, to pray for more vocations to the priesthood. And don’t forget to let our priests know that we are praying for them and appreciate their service.

The garden...

The garden ended last night... its kind of sad going out and stripping the plants of everything left ... and yet satisfying at the same time. Its been a lot of work trying (and failing) to keep up with it, it has provided endless vegetables, endless meditation time, endless excuses to play in the dirt, endless tomatoes and peppers and everything else a lot of which i will be eating until next summer... and now its done for the year. Well, sort of done anyway, I now have a lot of tomatoes that will ripen a few at a time until Christmas... as well as all the food preserved to last through next summer.

End of the garden looks something like this:
-3/4 bushel of green tomatoes
-2 large bowls of green cherry & yellow pear tomatoes
-1 overflowing large bowl of sweet peppers (some rather small)
-1 large bowl jalepeno peppers
-a salad worth of lettuce
-carrots left to be dug up



What I grew this year (in the vegetable garden)...
-lettuce (all summer)
-beans (mid summer)
-peas (spring/early summer)
-carrots (need to dig up and freeze now)
-pumpkins- for all the vines i got one small pie pumpkin, need to bake it and make pie soon
-tomatoes- constant stream all summer, eating them with every meal, snacking on them constantly, giving them away to friends, feeding them to Suzie, plus I canned 40 pints of salsa, 18 quarts of canned tomatoes, 6 quarts marinara sauce and have an overflowing bowl on the counter right now
-jalapeno peppers - see above- 40 pints of salsa, and now overflow being frozen for later use
-sweet bell peppers, fairly constant stream of peppers throughout the summer, now i'm freezing the overflow for stir fry
-cucumbers- it was a mixed year for cukes. the pickling ones didn't do well, only got a couple so no pickles this year. the salad ones did okay and only ripened in batches of 10 each time.
-strawberries- okay crop early summer, but i probably need to space them out more for better yields.
-rhubarb- my first attempt- looked like it was growing well and nearly ready to eat, until Chance dug it up and ripped all the leaves off during his visit (grrrr). I'm hoping the roots are still intact enough to grow for next year.

I also started a Home and Garden journal for entering info about what worked and didn't work. Its nice to write that down so next spring when i remember that i had a brilliant idea but can't for the life of me remember what it is, i can just flip through and find it.

I'm also tracking canning stuff- what we did, what we liked, how much we got, etc. Its fun to write it all down and know that next year we can do less guess-work and actually just look back at the journal. :D

Happy End of the Garden my friends.

What a weekend!!

It was quite a weekend- crazy busy to say the least!! Let's see, some vital stats from said weekend:


Friday night- grocery shopping, nice visit with Betsy Pink


Saturday (all day) - 4 good friends, 2 tots, 7.5 bushels of apples into 97 quarts of applesauce, a beautiful day, lots of work, lots of fun, lots of mess. A good day all around, with a few minor casualties and applesauce to feed the masses for the coming year.


Sunday - Mass, sunshine, wrapping gifts, Jane Colette's baptism (no more pagans) and as Deacon Dan reminded all of us- the most important day of her life- what a blessing to be part of it, party to celebrate Jane's baptism, Geno's and Lucy's birthdays, lots of kiddos, baby snuggles, toddler playtime, and even a few adult conversations thrown in. Then Life Teen and finally home to bed.

Monday- ouch.

Revenge

So... many of my readers (all 3 of you) may remember the prank Kara and I pulled on our friend Nick several years ago, its too long to go into all the details, but basically i convinced him that my dog Maggie (who he hates) had died. The sobbing over the phone had him convinced and he even admitted that he cried when his dog died, so i didn't feel so bad. Anyway, that was 3 years ago and ever since he has been plotting his revenge. This weekend, while I was away on the CTK women's retreat...

in case you can't count them all, that is 1500 bows on my house, surrounding bushes, basketball hoop... thats a lot of bows. When we pulled up from retreat, I had a good laugh!! nice job guys!

Btw, I spent an hour and a half on Monday night removing bows and was only half done. I'm sure the neighbors are all wondering what on earth is going on. The paper delivery lady came out and insisted on hearing the story and wondered if it was my birthday. Nope, I gave her the very short version and she thought it was hilarious. Last night I spent another hour with the ladder and got the rest of them off. Note to self, if you decide to bow someone's house, the duck tape and masking taped bows come off easily, using the bow adhesive makes it impossible to get off. Tonight i need to razor blade off the windows. Anyway, last night Scott (my next door neighbor who hates dogs and thinks i am dumb) walked by and said "It looks like you've got plenty of bows for your Christmas wrapping." I laughed and agreed, so he asked "Did something happen to Maggie? I couldn't figure out what the message on the garage meant." I told him the short version of the story, he laughed and headed home. More evidence for him that I am crazy. :)

It was a good prank- other than the lingering bow adhesive on the siding and basketball hoop. But I still won- there really is nothing to top convincing your friend your dog died by sobbing on the phone and getting him to admit that he cried when his dog died too :D Not to mention the other people that were caught on the same prank to lesser degrees... Yes, it sure was good.

Pruning

I really do learn a lot about God and about myself through my adventures of a homeowner and gardener (or wanna be gardener). Today's tidbit is about my Rose of Sharon bush. When I moved into my house in November of 2002 it was hard to tell exactly what all the shrubs around the house were. I was pleasantly surprised the following summer to find the large shrub in front is a rose of sharon bush, that blooms with beautiful purple blossoms all summer and fall. I love that bush!! The sparrows also love that bush and it always seems to be full of happy birds, fluttering and singing.


The first couple years I lived there I didn't do anything to this large bush, and it continued to grow and bloom beautifully. The best time for pruning the rose of sharon is late winter or early spring- so usually I forget to do so since that is not the time of year I'm out in the yard much. Two years ago, I got my act together and actually went out the prune it in February, and spent a lot of time trimming the branches back and shaping it. The following summer, it bloomed more than I've ever seen! It was breathtaking for the whole summer and fall. Last year, once again, I forgot to prune it (yeah, I still don't do much in the yard in February) and this summer it only had half its usual amount of leaves and 1/4 the flowers... rather overgrown and bare and sad looking. Don't get me wrong, it still did bloom, but very very sparingly and especially compared to previous years, it was kind of disappointing. A few days ago, although its only October, I trimmed some of the lower branches that were in the way of the lawn cutting and some dead branches too. I really need to remember to do a thorough pruning in February.


Looking at my sad rose of sharon in its overgrown state made me think about my life lately. Do you ever feel like your life needs pruning? Somehow it grows and grows and grows and without pruning, it gets to the point of being so busy trying to support the size of it that it doesn't have the energy to flower. I think I'm there in life right now. I'm feeling overgrown and flower-less (metaphorically speaking). I'm not sure how exactly to prune or what needs to go, but it is time to do some pruning...