My New Favorite Prayer

Dear Lord, I am sick to death of making beds, cleaning, and all the other jobs that go into keeping this household together. Grant me a clearer sense of my vocation to this work so that I may think less of the drudgery and more of the spiritual opportunity that it gives me.
Be with me in the duties of my day; and when, as now, I feel like dropping from fatigue and boredom and I long to be rid of it all, rouse in me a spirit of endurance and greater generosity.
Help me to make more of an effort to model myself on You. The daily work in the house at Nazareth was not without its hardships, and in the work of Your ministry later on, You were both weary and pressed for time. Help me to remember this when I find myself suffocated by housework. Amen.

from: Holiness for Housewives (and other Working Women) by Dom Hubert Van Zeller (emphasis mine)

If my life could have a "theme prayer," this one would easily be in the top three. Maybe I ought to get it tattooed on my arm.

Perfecting Her Backhand

Overheard recently at The HomeFront Corp.:

Older Girl: Wow, [The Boy], you are a pretty good artist! Now you just have to learn to draw a little better . . .

Nothing like an older sister to make you feel special :)

A Day in the Life

Since April is Autism Awareness month, and Sensory Processing Disorder falls on the autism spectrum (you can have SPD and not be autistic, but many children who are diagnosed as autistic have SPD), I've been mulling over what to say about my experiences with SPD. The truth of the matter is that my experiences sometimes leave me so exhausted that there is no way I can accurately describe a day once it has drawn to a close. Then Carmen beat me to the punch, and got me thinking again about what to say about my Boy.

I love my children. I love each one of them more than I love my own life. They shine like new pennies, full of promise, brimming with potential. My daughters are spirited and wild, maddening and hilarious. I have the same worries for them that every mother has for a child; worries for their safety, their health, their happiness. They are so strong-willed, so easily confident, that I imagine, were we deities in ancient Greece, they would have been the ones to spring fully formed from my mind. They were born ready for life.

The Boy, I imagine, would have sprung fully formed from my heart. It's not that I love him more, I just understand him less. In a way, my heart has to shelter him from my mind, because my mind can't wrap itself around him. How do you deal with something that takes your child into his own world, and then drops him unexpectedly into the middle of the real world, unequipped to handle what he encounters? You can only love him, to make up for the lack of understanding.

Many people have asked me to explain SPD. They have asked me with questioning eyes, and with sympathetic smiles. They have asked me with pointed stares and head wags. They have asked me with love, with curiosity, with judgment. I still don't have a succinct answer; I don't know if succinct is even possible with SPD.

Here's the thing: SPD encompasses so many behaviors, that I am not entirely unsympathetic to those who seem skeptical while listening to a truncated definition. It sounds like a catch-all, a cop-out, and if I didn't deal with it everyday, I would be thinking the same thing. Some kids with SPD are sensory-seeking because they are hypo-sensitive. For them, the brain does not receive the message from sensory input that enough is enough. These are kids who may literally bounce themselves off of the wall in order to "feel" anything. Then there are the SPD kids who are so hyper-sensitive that they retreat and recoil from every sensory experience. They only wear one brand of socks; they eat all their food cold because even lukewarm feels hot to them; they run inside at the sound of a distant helicopter. Their senses are on overdrive, and they cannot recover when they are bombarded by life. I know I've talked about all of this before, but this is my life.

The Boy is a typical case for SPD, meaning that he is hypo-sensitive for some things and hyper-sensitive for others. He has fine motor delays and some gross motor delays. He has bilateral coordination delays, sequencing problems, some expressive language delays, and some receptive language delays. Certain noises or motions will cause a complete meltdown, from which he may never fully recover. If that happens at 9 am, well, good luck for the rest of the day. Unless you are a familiar fixture around our home, The Boy probably won't look at you when he talks to you, if he answers your questions at all. He has finally started using his classmates names - he has been in school with them since last September.

Each day with The Boy is like a blank slate, only the slate is all cracked, but you are still expected write on it as if it were whole. Mornings find him in bed next to me, after having come in sometime in the night, sucking his fingers and rubbing the shoulder of my nightgown between two fingers. He eats a waffle every morning, after all of "the parts" have been removed. "The parts" consist of the entire outer edge of the waffle that gets a little too crunchy in the toaster, and therefore must be removed so as to render it edible. He has to ask what he is drinking every morning because he is so hyposensitive in smell and taste that he can't tell on his own. He knows the difference between milk and juice by texture, not taste, and if you ask him what something smells like, he will tell you whatever color it happens to be. (That smells like purple!)

I could go on ad infinitum, but to what purpose? There is no way that I can ever predict what the day will hold by simply enumerating the many ways in which The Boy may react to the world. I've tried. If he is comfortable with a shirt one day, he may refuse it the next time because of a string that has come loose in the washer. But there are some things I can always count on: he won't try to sit on a bike; he will cry when you rinse his hair; he does like to have deep pressure in the form of a big hug or gentle, but firm arm squeezes; he'll always have room for a treat. He will always retreat into himself when he becomes overwhelmed - this is most typically when he stims. He calms himself by watching spinning wheels, flashing lights, pressing the same button on a toy a hundred times in a row, humming, running around in a circle. He's not hurting himself or anyone else, he is coping with a world that is not comfortable for him.

Where does this leave us? It leaves us on the path of every parent and child, trying to navigate a world that is not always an ideal place, but one that holds myriad wonders. It's leaves us grateful to live in a state that offers great intervention for SPD, with an occupational therapist and speech therapist who adore him. It leaves us happy that he is whole in body; smart, funny, and unbelievably endearing.

SPD takes a toll, there is no denying that. A toll of exhaustion, frustration, sorrow, and anger. But for all that it takes, it leaves behind a boy that I love beyond my wildest dreams. A boy who works harder than anyone for things that should be as natural as breathing. A boy who can't hold a pencil, but can memorize a song after hearing it one time. A boy who must have sprung fully formed from my heart, because my mind is too small for the job.

Movie Review Monday (+ 2 days)

SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!

This week we have a guest reviewer, considering my complete mental meltdown and resulting inability to string words into sentences. Rob, the Siskel to my Ebert (sorry Roeper), will review The Departed in 70 1/2 words, but it is chock full of SPOILERS, so if you think you want to see this movie and you don't want to know what happens, then SKIP THIS NOW. Otherwise, you only have yourself to blame . . .

The Departed


Rated R - for strong brutal violence, pervasive language, some strong s*xual content, and drug material


Starring: Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin


LEO: He's a cop--a criminal--a cop--a criminal--a cop--HE'S DEAD
MATT: He's a criminal--a cop--a criminal--a cop--criminal--HE'S DEAD
JACK: Foul-mouthed Southie--a criminal--still a criminal--still a criminal--HE'S DEAD
MARTIN: He's a cop--a c-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH--HE'S DEAD
ALEC: He's surprisingly funny--and a cop--HE'S NOT DEAD
MARK: DON'T MESS WITH MARKY-MARK!


Enjoy your Oscar, Mr. Scorcese!



Editor's note: That's pretty much the whole thing, except without the language. Don't make the mistake that I made by putting the movie in at 9:30 pm without checking the running time. It's 2 hours and 31 minutes of gut-wrenching cat-and-mouse suspense, and it doesn't lend itself to slipping off into a peaceful slumber either. All that being said, we did enjoy the film, and we were very impressed by all of the performances. I've always liked Matt Damon, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed watching Leonardo DiCaprio. And once again, it strikes me that the importance of a strong supporting cast cannot be overstated - hot guys only carry the film so far, even if they are good actors with washboard abs. If you can take a lot of violence (think Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan), and you can overlook about 2 hours of really bad language, then the plot and the actors will definitely pull you through.


The Mother Load Rating: 4 baskets (and no, I won't give everything 4 baskets, we're just on a roll with our movies!)

You Can Take the Girl Out of Pennsylvania . . .

But you can't take the Pennsylvania out of the girl! While we were in the Navy and roaming the eastern seaboard, I was often homesick for the land of my birth. I enjoyed living in other states, and I'm glad we had the opportunity to travel, but good old Pennsylvania always beckoned to me. We have some strange ways, to be sure, but doesn't every place? I guess it's just comfortable here because it's what I know - I'm glad I came home to roost.
A friend sent me this funny list of quirks from the Commonwealth, and I'm sharing it with you and sending it out to my friends who want to be in PA:


Once a Pennsylvanian, ALWAYS a Pennsylvanian! About Pennsylvanians:

• You've never referred to Philadelphia as anything but "Philly" and New Jersey has always been " Jersey " And don't forget that you "go down the shore" when you want a little vacation by the ocean
• You refer to Pennsylvania as "PA" (pronounced Pee-ay). How many other states do that?
• "You guys" is a perfectly acceptable reference to a group of men and women
• You know how to respond to the question "Djeetyet?" (Didyoueatyet?) You also know what to say when someone asks if "you comin' with?"
• You learned to pronounce Bryn Mawr, Wilkes-Barre , Schuylkill , the Poconos, Tamaqua, Tunkannock, Bala Cynwyd, Duquesne and Monongahela. And we know Lancaster is pronounced LANK aster, not Lan KASTER. I think Rob finally says it the "right" way, but he'll never give up on Carlisle. In PA, we say CAR-lisle and apparently the rest of the world says car-LISLE.
• You know what a "Mummer" is, and are disappointed if you can't catch at least highlights of the parade.
• You know what " Punxsutawney Phil" is, and what it means if he sees his shadow.
• The first day of buck and the first day of doe season are school holidays.
• You know how to "redd up". And you also know what it means when something "is all"
• You can use the phrase "fire hall wedding reception" and not even bat an eye. Some of the best people I know had fire hall weddings!
• You can't go to a wedding without hearing the "Chicken Dance," at least one polka and a traditional Italian song.
• At least five people on your block have electric "candles" in all or most their windows all year long. Rob loves the candles in the window!
• You know what a "Hex sign" is.
• You know what a "State Store" is, and your out-of-state friends find it incredulous that you can't purchase liquor at the mini-mart.
• You own only 4 condiments: salt, pepper, mustard and ketchup.
• Words like "hoagie," "crick," "chipped ham," "dippy eggs","sticky buns," "shoo-fly pie," "lemon sponge pie", "pierogies" and "pockabook" actually mean something to you. Don't forget fastnachts!
• You can eat cold pizza (even for breakfast) and know others who do the same. (Those from NY find this "barbaric.") Rob cannot believe that I take pizza straight from the fridge.
• You not only have heard of Birch Beer, but you know it comes in several colors: Red, White, Brown, Gold.
• You know several places to purchase or that serve Scrapple, Summer Sausage and Hot Bacon Dressing Mmmmmm . . . scrapple!
• You can eat a cold soft pretzel from a street vendor without fear and enjoy it. It almost always comes with mustard. And the best ones come from the guy with the old shopping cart in the middle of the highway.
• You know the difference between a cheese steak and a pizza steak sandwich, and know that you can't get a really good one out side PA, except Atlantic City on the boardwalk.
• You live for summer, when street and county fairs signal the beginning of funnel cake season.
• Customers ask the waitress for "dippy eggs" for breakfast.
• You know that Blue Ball, Intercourse, Paradise ,Climax, Bird-in-Hand, Beaver, Moon, Virginville, Mars, and Slippery Rock are PA towns. (and the first three were consecutive stops on the Reading RR)
• You know what a township, borough, and commonwealth is.
• A traffic jam is 10 cars waiting to pass a horse-drawn carriage on the highway in Lancaster County . Except in the Lehigh Valley - our traffic jams are because of the perpetual construction on Rts. 22, 78, or 222
• You know several people who have hit deer more than once.You carry jumper cables in your car and your female passengers know how to use them.
• You still keep kitty litter, starting fluid, de-icer, or a snowbrush in your trunk, even if you now live in the south.
• Driving is always better in winter because the potholes are filled with snow.
• As a kid you built snow forts and leaf piles that were taller than you were.
• Your graduating class consisted of mostly Polish,German, and Italian names.
• You know beer doesn't grow in a garden but you know where to find a beer garden.
• You also know someone who lives "down the lane".
• You actually understand any of this.

Scattergories Meme

I saw this over at Linda's place (who, by the way, makes some really darling hair bows for the little lassies - you should check them out!), and since I rock at Scattergories, I thought I'd go for it. Well, I rock at Scattergories as long as I am not playing against my husband, the all-time champion of every board game every invented since the beginning of time. It is maddening and awe-inspiring at the same time. But I digress . . .
The basic premise of Scattergories is to answer questions from a slew of random categories, with all of the answers beginning with the same letter. In our house, we also list as many answers for each category as we can think of before the time expires, although I'm not sure if that is in the original rules of the game. All of my answers will begin with "A" since that is the first letter of my name; at least, I'm pretty sure that's how this meme goes.
Here is Scattergories, Aimee Style:

Your name: Aimee

Famous singer/band: Aerosmith
4 letter word: Ages
Street: Ash Street (doesn't every town have a row of streets named after trees? We do!)
Color: Amber
Gifts/Presents: Amethyst
Vehicle: Audi
Things in a Souvenir Shop: Artwork (the fancy name for postcards)
Boy's Name: Andrew
Girl's Name: Anna
Movie Title: Amistad
Drink: Amaretto
Occupation: Anthropologist
Flower: Aster
Celebrity: America Ferrera
Magazine: Appleseeds
US City: Anchorage, Alaska
Pro Sports Teams: (Colorado) Avalanche
Fruit: Apple (so mundane, I should have said Anjou Pear or something)
Reason for being late for work: Alien abduction
Something you throw away: Ashes
Things you shout: "Argh!" (in either of these two circumstances: I am playing pirates with The Boy, or I have seriously stubbed my toe and I don't want to swear in front of the kids. It works equally well for both.)
Cartoon character: Archie Andrews

I now pass the fun on to anyone who has the time for it, or who, like some who shall remain anonymous, doesn't really have the time but does it anyway.

Gas Station Throwdown

Sometimes I just don't know what people are thinking. On the way to "gym class" this morning (aka: The Boy's occupational therapy), the yellow light came on in the van to remind me to apply for my weekly loan to fill up the tank. I stopped in at the gas station adjacent to the local grocery store since they offer a gas reward points promotion for shopping there. I figure with all the cash I drop in that place, I've earned some cheap(er) gas.

I had just started pumping, and I was enjoying the beautiful weather and making funny faces at The Boy and Baby Girl through the window, so I hardly noticed the only other car in the gas station. I could barely see the attendant behind the tinted glass of her special cage hut station-house, but I assumed she was in there dutifully guarding the cigarettes and the cash drawer, in that order. Then I heard the scratchy whine of feedback over her intercom as she sent a message to my fellow gas pump patron:

"Uh, excuse me, ma'am, but you have to put that cigarette out. I can't let you smoke over top of the gas pump."

What? Who in God's name was smoking over their gas pump? Haven't they ever, ever seen any episodes of Oprah or Inside Edition? If they don't want you to use your cell phone at the pump, why on earth would you be allowed to light one up? Come on now.

I was just about to finish up (only fifteen more dollars and the tank will be full!), when I saw the attendant leave her booth, carefully lock the door behind her (the cigarettes, you know), and walk towards the other car. She was almost creeping; slowly edging around the pumping island so that she could go all crouching tiger, hidden attendant on the customer. She sprung around the island for the face-off.

"Are you smoking over here?"

(indistinct mumbling)

"Yes, you ARE smoking. I saw you hiding behind the pump and lighting up! You can't smoke while you are pumping gas!

(more mumbling)

"Well, then I can't let you pump gas. You can't stand over the fumes from the gas pump with a lit cigarette in your mouth."

(mumble, mumble, mumble)

"Yeah, you can smoke over there across the parking lot as soon as you're done, but not here."

(attendant turns and walks toward her booth, customer yelling:)

"Well thanks a lot, now I have to run my whole card through again!"

Now I ask you, which is worse?: having to use one tenth of a second to swipe a piece of plastic through a machine, or going up face first in a blaze of glory and taking the gas station with you? Yeah, that's what I thought, too. Nothing like a little brawl at the gas station to get the day started off right!

Link, Link, Link to my Lou . . .

or is it "Link to my Loo?" No, that can't be right. A loo is a bathroom and there is no way that you should ever, under any circumstances, be linked to my loo.

At any rate, here's a little linkage lovefest for you to enjoy:


One of my best good friends since first grade has been lured into Blogville - possibly by the enticing antics of people like T and myself. So go see Meg over at The Misadventures of Mom, because first grade was a long time ago and she knows a lot of dirt about me. A lot.


I have a little Blessed Mother watching over my sidebar now (see her?), thanks to the Catholic Mothers Online blogroll. I first saw this over at Barb's, and since I already read some of these blogs (and because I think Barb is cool) I thought I would join. Are you Catholic? Are you a mom, godmom, future mom, do your intials spell MOM? You should join!


File under Holy Moly, A Lot of People Use the Internet!!: take a little detour over to BooMama's place and check out the totals of our For Heather web-a-thon. I'll wait for you to catch your breath . . . better? And here's the cool thing - I'm willing to bet that total will go higher still. Makes my little heart swell happiness.

All right, off you go - and off I go to do some real work for a change!

Three Things

I was tagged by 4andcounting for the Three Things Meme, and since my brain is dried up and rattling around my skull like a desiccated bean, I will take the Get Out of Writing a Post Free Card and tell you all about:

Three Things That Scare Me:
1. the death of or severe bodily injury to one of my little chicks
2. log trucks (they just don't look safe barreling down the highway!)
3. Land Shark

Three People Who Make Me Laugh:
1. Rob
2. The Kids
3. Sinbad (the comedian and the sailor)

Three Things I Love:
1. my parish and my kids' school
2. our new wireless internet hookup
3. taking the curves hell for leather in Rob's sporty new Honda Civic

Three Things I Hate:
1. dishonesty
2. rude and/or cruel people
3. head cheese

Three Things I Don't Understand:
1. quantum physics
2. ancient Greek
3. How my son, with fine motor and bilateral coordination delays, can use an electric screwdriver to open the top of a battery-powered train, but he cannot pee into the toilet without hitting the floor, his pants, the wall, or some combination thereof.

Three Things On My Desk:
1. the broken baby monitor. I keep it for aesthetics.
2. a stack of expired coupons (I keep them for the memories of the money I might have saved had I had my act together)
3. three tangled rosaries, thanks to Baby Girl

Three Things I am Doing Right Now (well, not right this second, but more of a general "right now")
1. reading other people's blogs and wishing I was cooler
2. having a cup of coffee instead of the Oreos I really want
3. reading Wild Swans and being very glad I am not growing up in post-WWII China

Three Things To Do Before I Die:
1. visit a foreign country
2. run another 5K
3. watch my children become adults

Three Things I Can Do:
1. sing
2. cook
3. throw a fun party

Three Things I Can't Do:
1. play an instrument
2. drive stick shift
3. open heart surgery

Three Things I Think You Should Listen To:
1. any talk by Fr. Larry Richards. He tells you how it is, and how it should be, without being mean or condescending - that's pretty hard to do, in my opinion.
2. your conscience
3. anything sung by Alison Krauss

Three Things You Should Never Listen To:
1. the noise that Styrofoam makes when you pull it out of a cardboard box
2. whining
3. "Candygram"

Three Things I Would Like To Learn:
1. to sew (more than just hemming/mending)
2. any kind of dance - waltz, tap, samba, whatever!
3. to play an instrument

Three Favorite Foods (Only 3? Do you know me?)
1. chocolate
2. coffee
3. ice cream

Three Shows I Watched As A Kid:
1. JEM (she was truly outrageous)
2. 321 Contact
3. Captain Noah (a Philadelphia-based show that was sort of like Mr. Rogers on the High Seas)

Three Things I Regret:
1. every grudge I've ever held
2. hurting my parents' feelings just for spite
3. putting mayonnaise in my friend Kim's bra during a high school sleep-over . . . and then freezing it (No one came away unscathed, but Kim's was the messiest)

I'm supposed to tag three people, but I'm going to open it up to whoever wants to do it - just let me know in the comments so I can stop by and read up on all your "things".

Pay It Forward on April 18th

If you've spent any time trolling around the internet, following the links in my sidebar, or just lurking and reading in general, I know you've seen some blog designs by Swank Web Style. BooMama's place is just one of many designed by Heather from Swank Designs, and I had been seriously considering asking her to do a little something for my little corner, until I heard the news that Heather has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. You can read her whole story here and here, but the long and short of it is this:
Heather will be going to the Mayo Clinic for treatment on April 25th, and BooMama is organizing a little internet-a-thon to try and raise some money for her trip, since the family finances always take a big hit when it comes to major illness. I don't know Heather, and she doesn't know me, but it doesn't matter to me at this point. Even if I only send enough her way to pay for a dinner at Chez McDonald's, I will do it because I want to and I can. Simple as that. See the "For Heather" button on my sidebar? Scroll down a little . . . yep, there it is! If you are feeling so inclined on the 18th, it will whisk you over to BooMama's where you can find all the details.
Just putting a little ready-made karma out there for you . . .
(Oh, and BooMama has done something like this before, so I can attest from personal experience that the whole shebang on the up and up.)

A Quiet Prayer

For those who were lost in the tragedy at Virginia Tech, and for those who are left reeling in the wake of violence . . .

Remember, O Most Gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known, that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired with the confidence, I fly unto you, O Virgin of virgins, My Mother. To you I come, before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in your mercy, hear and answer me. Amen.

Older Girl at the Table of the Lord

April 14, 2007

A Big Day

If you get the chance, could you send a little prayer spiralling upward for Older Girl? She makes her First Holy Communion tomorrow, and she's nervously excited. We have to be at the church by 9 am, so say a prayer for me as well - pray that I can get everyone dressed to the nines without having to wake up at 4:15. We are surely appreciative!

This Is The Night

Rejoice, heavenly powers!
Sing, choirs of angels!
Exult, all creation around God's throne!
Jesus Christ, our King, is risen!
Sound the trumpet of salvation!
Rejoice, O earth in shining splendor,
Radiant in the brightness of your King!
Christ has conquered!
Glory fills you!
Darkness vanishes forever!
Rejoice, O Mother Church!
Exult in glory!
The risen Savior shines upon you!
Let this place resound with joy,
Echoing the mighty song of all God's people! . . .

It is truly right that with full hearts and minds and voices
We should praise the unseen God, the all-powerful Father,
And His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

For Christ has ransomed us with His blood,
And paid for us the price of Adam's sin
To our eternal Father!
This is our Passover feast
When Christ, the true Lamb, is slain,
Whose blood consecrates the homes of all believers.
This is the night when You first saved our fathers:
You freed the people of Israel from their slavery
And led them dry-shod through the sea.
This is the night when the pillar of fire
Destroyed the darkness of sin!
This is the night when Christians everywhere,
Washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement,
Are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.

This is the night, when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death
And rose triumphant from the grave.
What good would life have been to us,
Had Christ not come as our Redeemer?
Father, how wonderful Your care for us!
How boundless Your merciful love!
To ransom a slave you gave away Your Son.
O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam,
Which gained for us so great a Redeemer!

Most blessed of all nights,
chosen by God to see Christ rising from the dead!
Of this night, Scripture says:
"This night will be as clear as day:
it will become My light, My joy."
The power of this holy night
Dispels all evil,
washes guilt away,
Restores lost innocence,
Brings mourners joy,
It casts out hatred,
Brings us peace,
And humbles earthly pride.
Night truly blessed
When heaven is wedded to earth
And man is reconciled with God!

Therefore, heavenly Father, in the joy of this night
Receive our evening sacrifice of praise,
Your Church's solemn offering.
Accept this Easter candle,
A flame divided but undimmed,
A pillar of fire that glows to the honor of God.
Let it mingle with the lights of heaven
And continue bravely burning
To dispel the darkness of this night!

May the Morning Star which never sets
Find this flame still burning:
Christ that Morning Star,
Who came back from the dead,
And shed His peaceful light
On all mankind,
Forever and ever. Amen.

- from the Exsultet (Easter Proclamation),
traditional chant, arranged by J. Michael Thompson

HAPPY EASTER!

Keepin' It Holy, Y'All

On Palm Sunday, our pastor said that, as Catholics, we tend to live our lives with one foot in the here-and-now and one foot in the eternal. We're keeping our eye on The Prize, as it were. But something really special happens during this week. This Holy Week. We get to put both feet in the eternal, and really do it right - if only once a year. He quoted Anthony Padovano, in his book Who Is Christ?: Love without restraint requires sacrifice. Any time we love with everything we have, we will always be called to sacrifice. That's why the Sacrament of Marriage is more like the sacrifice of the Mass than any other sacrament. (It's the best description of marriage that I've ever heard, but that's for another post.)

Father challenged us to keep this week holy through sacrifice; to show God that you love without restraint. Maybe you can see where this is going, my friends. This blog is a wonderful corner for me and I have such a tender spot for all you dear ones of the internet, but it can also be a distraction. I always start out on the blog, and then I wander off the bunny trail into the vast Uncharted Territories of the Internet. Little Red Riding Hood's mom had it right: Don't wander off the path, because it usually leads to no good.

I'm signing off for Holy Thursday and Good Friday, and maybe it's sad that I consider that a sacrifice, albeit a small one, but there it is. I'm loving without restraint, and I'm spending my time with God and family - in that order.

I hope the rest of your week finds you where you need to be and doing what you need to do to keep it holy, and I'll see you for the Big Finish (which is really just the beginning . . .)

The Corner of Accountability

Since it seems that I only want to hang out in front of the computer instead of, you know, keeping my home and family running smoothly, I've decided to harness the power of the internet for good. To wit: A public list of my private domestic messes (in the hopes that getting to cross them off on the blog will finally get me to do something about them!)

1. The Garage:

• sort through the junk
• organize existing shelving
• set up "mud room" area for shoes/boots/jackets
• put screen door on the access door into kitchen

2. The Storage Room:

• go through boxes of "saved" clothes that the children have outgrown already. Ask not for whom the clothes are saved. They are saved for a trip to the consignment store.
• organize existing shelves
• consolidate outdoor decorations into one area and LABEL it so that you don't have to dig through seventy boxes before you find the heavy duty outdoor extension cord (not that we've ever experienced this, but it's good to be prepared)
• put your heart into your screams to show the spiders you mean business

3. The Playroom:

• sort through toys
• throw away anything that came with a "meal"
• give away lots of untouched stuff in good shape
• get real shelves for the stuff that's left
• watch kids play with empty boxes and paper towel rolls

4. The Laundry Room:

• sort through The Leaning Tower of Board Games and part with the ones that are missing more than half of the pieces (Buh-bye, Hi Ho Cherry O, you taunting, cherry spewing mess)
• put dirty clothes in the empty baskets that are sitting right next to the piles on the floor
• get shelf for the detergents
• burn down organize the kids' craft table
• caress scrapbooking supplies and put them in your "Ten Year Plan" pile

5. The White Cabinet:

• Just do something, anything, with the piles of cd's in the white cabinet
• go to Target and get one of those cd books that can hold them all

6. Baby Girl's Closet:

• It's probably ok to go ahead and donate/lend her 0-3 month clothes to someone seeing how she is roughly the height of a 2 year old now
• finish hanging the shelves and pictures that you planned for her room - remember? back when you were about 6 months pregnant? Time to get on that.

7. The Boy's Closet:

• Take advantage of the fact that he is short-legged and a boy, which means that he has nothing of any real substance to hang in his closet - move his dresser into the closet to free up some square footage for a desk
• Otherwise, this room looks good

8. Your Own Den of Shame Closet:

• There may be no end to the amount of sorting and reshelving that needs to go on in there.You know what you need to do, so get cracking!
• That goes double for your dresser

These are the major hot-spots that need immediate attention. I'm sure twenty more Challenges of Organizational Prowess will spring up in their places, but that's for another day and another list. I'm putting a link in the sidebar, just to keep me honest, and I'm counting on you, my lovelies, to hold me to it.

Inside the Mind of a Seven (and a half!) Year Old

Older Girl has a friend who transferred to a new school at the beginning of this school year, and she misses her very much. They have kept in touch via letters and playdates, and Older Girl is tickled with the "old-fashioned" notion of having a pen-pal. Her letters are some of the best I have ever read because, while they may be random, they are also uncensored, kind, and heartfelt. Sometimes I wonder what is going on in her mind, but these letters give me the luxury of a little glimpse. (And, yes, I have permission to read them. She asks me to put them in the envelope for her since it is verboten for children to handle the office supplies around here. Sounds harsh, but I don't want to have to go back to being a cashier just to keep us in envelopes and scotch tape, my friends.)

Here is the latest letter, which shows that she really does get what Lent and Easter are all about:

Dear H,

About the cursive, a little. Happy Easter! At choir we practiced Holy Week Songs. The one for Good Friday made me cry! Here is part of the song "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" Sad, right?! But it gets better.

Sincerely,
Older Girl


Yes, it surely does get better . . .

Movie Review Monday

For Your Consideration
Rated PG-13 (for very brief language)
Starring: Christopher Guest, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Michael McKean, Parker Posey, Harry Shearer, Jennifer Coolidge, Ricky Gervais

Rob and I tend to have a warped sense of humor when it comes to movies. We laugh at inappropriate cinematic moments; we pepper our viewings of major blockbusters with sarcastic or sardonic comments; in short, we cannot refrain from going all Crow and Tom Servo on almost every movie we see (and kudos to anyone who knows what I mean when I say MST3K). That's why we love Christopher Guest movies. Best in Show? We still quote that to one another. The way he uses the mockumentary format to skewer the outrageous antics of his subjects is right up our snarky little alley, and we were excited to see his latest work.

I will admit right up front that For Your Consideration (FYC) wasn't my favorite Guest movie, but it was pretty darn funny nonetheless. A Hollywood send-up that would have been great to see right before the Oscars, FYC centers on the low-budget film "Home For Purim," and the hubbub created when some of the D-list actors are mentioned on an internet site as being Academy Award contenders. Catherine O'Hara shines as Marilyn Hack, an aging actress who trudges along and frets over the urge to plasticize herself. It takes a good actress to convincingly play a bad actress, and O'Hara makes it look easy. She plays the long-suffering matriarch in a WW II era southern Jewish family, whose final wish is to see her son and daughter at the table for the celebration of Purim. Harry Shearer, in the role of low-rate commercial actor Victor Allan Miller, plays her husband, and Parker Posey, an up and coming young starlet, plays her rebel daughter Rachel.

Every Hollywood-type personality you can imagine is present, and not a one is spared the Cone of Satire. There is the Director (Guest) who tells the actors, I love that you did all this work, and it will serve you well - just not on this movie; there is the deeply closeted Makeup Artist/Bosom Buddy to Star who goes around swatting at people with a powder puff (a hilarious turn by caftan-clad Ed Begley, Jr.); the Pair of Writers (Bob Balaban and Michael McKean), who are desperately trying (and failing) to preserve the integrity of their script in the face of director, producers, and studio executives; the film's bumbling Publicist (John Michael Higgins) who doesn't even know what the internet is (Is that the one with the e-mail?); the Agent (Eugene Levy) who talks a good game, but doesn't give a rat's patootie about his client; the slick Studio Suit (Ricky Gervais) who wants to tone down Home for Purim's Jewishness, and ends up changing it to Home for Thanksgiving; and so much more. But, perhaps my very favorite of all, are Jane Lynch and Fred Willard as Chuck and Cindy, the Entertainment News Reporters. Their spoof of Access Hollywood/Entertainment Tonight/Insider is too much, mostly because it's true!

Once the actors find out that the awards buzz is out there, they engage in a publicity blitz of mammoth proportions all while maintaining a facade of sang-froid, lest they seem like they want the accolades (it's just an honor to be nominated?). They make the rounds on shows like Chillaxin' (think MTV, VH1); Marilyn gets some "work done" and becomes totally unrecognizable to her costars; their agents negotiate aggressively and fawn over them. Things quickly spiral out of control, just like real life, but I won't spoil the movie by telling who wins and who goes home to do buffalo wings commercials or teach acting classes at community college.

Overall, FYC is a funny, and pointed, look at the film industry, but it seems to bear in mind the fact that this movie itself had to go through the Hollywood machine to get out to the public. It's sarcasm with a tender underbelly, and we give that two big thumbs up around here.

The Mother Load rating: 4 baskets