Friday Favorites

This Friday, one of the 'favorites' evokes wonderful memories of my childhood. I remember this St. Joseph Missal sitting in front of a stack of toys one Christmas, I don’t remember one other thing I got that Christmas, definitely I did not save any of the toys I got that year, but almost forty-seven years later I still cherish this Missal. The Mass was still said in Latin at that time and my missal had Latin on the left page and English on the right page so I was happy to be able to follow along. We were being taught some Latin in school, I remember Sister Mary Avellina teaching us the Our Father in Latin (I wish I could still recite it, but it’s lost to me now), it wasn’t long after receiving this Missal though that changes took place with Vatican II and the Mass was then said in English, and no one brought their Missals to Mass with them anymore. I still use this little book to say many of the prayers in it, and to look at the many beautiful pictures it contains. I especially love that my Mom wrote on the first page of this book, I love that her handwriting (her oh so very beautiful handwriting) is still here with me inside one of my treasures long after she is gone. Having this book is like having a little piece of her heart still here with me.
This Missal is wrapped up in memories of my mother, as it was she that first taught me about God and Faith. It was from my mother that I first learned a love that I could rely on, it was from her that I first felt loved, and it was from my mother that I also first felt God’s Infinite Love. Before grade school at Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament School, before the Sisters of Mercy, even before I first ever attended Mass, there was my mother, my first teacher of my Faith.


My other favorite today is the place where I like to spend a lot of time each day, on the computer, at the desk in our dining room. I enjoy spending time writing, or reading what others have written, I love keeping in touch with family and friends through emails, and I like using the computer as an encyclopedia, it is a font of information for me, any subject that I find interesting is right at my fingertips!

And today is my sister-in-law Susie’s Birthday. Birthdays are a time for gifts, and remembering Susie on her Birthday reminds me that it is from Susie that I received some of the most valuable gifts that have ever been bestowed on me in my life, and they are love, forgiveness, and friendship. Susie took something inside of me that was in shreds and made it whole again, she took what was darkness and despair and transformed it into light and joy. There are no words that I know of to convey to her the appreciation that is contained in my heart. How do you thank someone for restoring your soul?
I'm thanking God for the Gift of Susie.
I'm happy that her Birthday falls on a Friday this year, because Susie fits right into my Friday Favorites.


Weekend Forecast:

Not a whole lot on the weekend forecast this time.

Saturday ~ If the weather is nice we’re driving up to a lake to do some fishing. Later in the day I’ll be baking another recipe of Diana’s (she's been kind enough to post her recipes on her blog 'Welcome To My World', I'll bake either her peanut butter and jelly cake, or another batch of her potato chip cookies).

Sunday ~ Again, if the weather is nice we’ll be planting flowers at the cemetery in the morning. Later in the day the kids will come to our home for a visit.

We have no alternate plans if it rains. I guess we’ll just have to be spontaneous!

National Day Of Prayer

While visiting another blog (A Bit Of The Blarney) yesterday I read that today is the National Day of Prayer. And then I looked it up to see how long this tradition has been held.
The National Day of Prayer is an annual observance held on the first Thursday of May, inviting people of all faiths to pray for the nation. It was created in 1952 by a joint resolution of the United States Congress, and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman.
I love the idea of a National Day of Prayer. I love the idea of people of all Faiths and all walks of life united in prayer for our country. God Has Been So Good to us as a nation. Despite her many problems, the United States is truly Blessed. I find it so heartening to know that many of the citizens of the United States will pause today to give thanks for God’s Blessings and to ask God to continue to Bless us, to Protect us, and to Guide us.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!

These Videos Make Me Smile

My nephew William took these three videos a few summers ago and he put them to music, I think he did a good job, and every time I watch them I smile. These videos also make me anxious to have Ray open the pool and usher in summer!

The first one is of my grandson Jayden (he was about eighteen months old here) having fun in the backyard pool with his “Paw” and Uncle Brian.




This next one is of our kids, and some of our nieces and nephews, and my sister-in-law, all just having a good time dancing and being silly. It was taken at a few of our parties over the summer and I think Will did a good job putting it together.



This last one is our nephew Mikael. Jayden especially loved this one and made us play it over and over again, he would ask to watch “Baboo jumping”. For some reason he used to call Mikael ‘Baboo’.

Obsessions

We all have our little (and maybe not-so-little) obsessions, and I have quite a few. Shopping, shoes, flea markets, garage sales, and even garbage picking among them. One of my biggest obsessions is perfume. I cannot get enough of it. I am always on a quest for a new scent. I still have not found the perfect scent (which actually is ever-changing in my world) but I have come close. I love many different scents too, floral, spicy, woodsy, musky, powdery, soapy, fruity, you name it, I love it! Right now I am on a quest for a clean, fresh, just-stepped-out-of-the-shower scent for the spring and summer, but I haven’t found the perfect fit yet.
I do tend to fall back on all my old favorites, and they are not all designer fragrances either, I do not discriminate, I love my drug-store finds just as much as I love my boutique finds. My cheap dime-store colognes have a place of prominence sitting right next to my (far too) expensive designer fragrances. Some of my old stand-bys are Burberry (original scent), Estee Lauder Youth Dew, Estee Lauder Aliage, Jean Nate, Love’s Baby Soft, Heaven Scent, Lily Bermuda (various scents), Tabu, Cashmere Mist, Rive Gauche, Carolina Herrera, Bulgari, Tiffany, Organza, Incense Avignon (it actually smells like Catholic Church incense! I was on a quest for this scent for years and my husband surprised me this past Christmas with it! It’s a beautiful winter scent), and (a very rare find [as I have read that they don’t distribute it in the U.S. anymore] and one of my most favorites, I think because it was one of my Mom’s favorites) L’Origan by Coty. I also have my favorite Irish perfumes, Tara and Connemara are prominent on that list. I have many, many, many more scents too, drawers and cabinets full of fine perfumes, cheap knock-off scents, Bath and Body sprays, Crabtree and Evelyn scents, etc., but the ones mentioned as my old stand-bys are my most favorites, they are like old friends. I think my obsession with perfumes has to do with the fact that scents trigger memories (hence my love of Incense, and my Mom’s L’Origan, and my cheap favorites from my teen-age years). I used to get embarrassed when someone took notice of this odd obsession I have, but I don’t apologize anymore for my addiction to perfume. It’s out there now for all to see, perfume, it’s one of my many vices, and I won’t hide it anymore.



Another obsession I have right now is owls, especially very old, small collectible owls that I have scoured junk shops, yard sales, and antique stores for. There is just something about these cute little birds that I love. I have ceramic owls, and wooden owls, bronze owls, and plastic owls. I have dishtowels with owls on them and I even have a pocket book with owls on it. I just love owls.
For many years I had an obsession with collecting tiny lambs, and another obsession was with collecting tiny tea sets. Most of the tea sets have long been given away to little girls (and some little boys) in the Kindergarten classes I used to work in, but a few favorites were saved and I will give them to my granddaughter when she is a little older. The lambs I couldn’t bear to part with so they’ve been boxed and put away, to be taken out another day. I am trying to get away from collections though, as I am trying to get out from under the clutter in my life, so I am going to have to put blinders on now if ever another cute owl should appear. Another obsession I used to have was the nail salon, every week like clockwork a new manicure, every two weeks for fill-ins. That obsession lasted for about a year or two, then I started watching my grandson full time and there is no time now for once a week visits to nail salons. Now my nails are back to stubs.
I also have a shared obsession with my friend Barbara, well, actually we share many obsessions (she’s obsessed with perfumes too, and then there’s shoes, and bags, and shopping in general, and almost anything Irish [and Barbara doesn’t have a drop of Irish blood in her!]), but we both share the really strange obsession for Riverdance, I think we’ve been to see this show at least twenty times between us (nine of those times we saw it on Broadway together! And then separately with our family and other friends!), and then we went to a few Riverdance-like productions on and off Broadway (Pirate Queen, and then there was another production by Michael Flatly), and I’ve been to a few other Irish dance productions while traveling in other states, and both Barbara and I bought and watch the different Riverdance DVD’s and listen to the different Riverdance CD’s. It’s another fervent obsession.


It’s funny isn’t it, how you can never understand an obsession if you yourself do not share it? Such as I don’t understand an obsession to clean, I wish I had that obsession, but regrettably, I do not, and I cannot for the life of me understand somebody’s need to clean all the time! I clean when I absolutely have to clean. I’ve tried all kinds of tricks and tips to no avail. I’ve even set up schedules for myself, but I never keep them. I read on another blog a little hint about doing one chore a day, and I thought to myself, I can do this. So I decided that I would do only the task of vacuuming one day. And I had the idea that I would split it up into an hourly task, 9:00 AM vacuum the stairs, 10:00 AM vacuum the hall downstairs, 11:00 AM vacuum dining room, and so on. Well, 9:00 AM came and I got out the vacuum and my grandson asked me to make him toast, so of course I obliged, then I got a phone call, at 9:30 I went to tackle the stairs and my grandson asked me to play Star Wars figures with him (now that is something I do not enjoy at all, I usually try to distract him and get him interested in having us play something else or I convince him to play with these characters all by himself, but this time I weighed vacuuming against playing Star Wars and Obi Wan Kenobi won). About an hour or so later I got Jayden interested in coloring and I decided I would just check my emails and then I would tackle vacuuming the stairs and the hall. While reading my emails I decided I would just answer a few of the letters, and then I decided it was too close to lunchtime to get into any vacuuming, so I promised myself I’d vacuum the stairs, the hall, and the dining room after lunch. Well, after Jayden ate his lunch he wanted to go outside for a little while, it was a beautiful day, and the vacuuming could wait. I would vacuum every room after we got back inside!
When we came back in the house Jayden asked me to read to him, which I did, and then he fell asleep on me, and of course I didn’t want to disturb him by moving him, so I stayed right there on the couch next to him and took a little nap myself. By the time the two of us woke up I decided it was too close to the time that everyone would be coming home from work, no time to vacuum now! So two days later the vacuum was still sitting idle in the hall. It eventually got done as it always does, but I guess my house will never be obsessively clean.

Another obsession that amazes me is the obsession (pro and con) some people have for Reality TV show mom Kate Gosselin. I don’t get the hate and I don’t get the love. She’s not my cup of tea, but I don’t wish she’d burn in ‘you-know-where’ as some folks do. My sister-in-law and I always refrained from being too hard on Mrs. Gosselin’s parenting style because we are sure our kids have more than a few ‘mommie dearest’ stories tucked away about us! And the same goes for her treatment of her husband, we’re sure there are probably a few ‘wife-y dearest’ stories the husbands have too! No sense in calling the pot black when we’re not such shiny or bright kettles ourselves. But on the other end of the spectrum, I don’t get the avid fans either. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of some celebrities, but I don’t invite them into my personal space. I mean they have their place in my life, they supply me with entertainment, I just don’t allow them to invade my inner circle. I certainly don’t care what hairstyles they wear or what they shop for, nor do I care what clothes they wear on their backs or what type of foods they eat. And I don’t care if nobody else likes them, I don’t feel the need to defend them or explain their actions. I guess I don’t have what it takes to be an obsessive fan. Although I have been accused lately of being addicted to a Gosselin fan site. In my defense, the site does discuss things other than Reality TV. But the computer itself is another obsession lately that I am trying to break away from. Obsession is bordering on addiction and between writing, and blogging, and emailing, and looking things up, the computer has more than merely invaded my life, it is beginning to run my life. I’m trying to limit myself to only certain times of the day, and then wean myself down to an hour or two a day. Wish me luck!

So while I might not understand the ‘all things Gosselin’ obsession, and I’m left even more baffled by the compulsive house cleaning obsession, I’m sure there are those that would shake their heads in bewilderment at my obsessions. I for one will try to no longer sit in judgment of others as they pursue their obsessions, and I hope everyone will do the same for me.

Cleaning Out The Back Room

(EARLY APRIL) A few years ago my husband and I had a three season room built onto the back of the house. During the winter it becomes a storage room. In the Fall we begin filling it up with things that can no longer sit outside as they did in the summer, and the room also gets filled with anything we don’t know what to do with at the time, we just open the back door and chuck it into the back room and we say we will worry about it when Spring comes around. By the time Winter comes, shovels, salt, and Christmas decorations are added to the mix. We also put a lot of the grandkids’ toys back there as we are running out of room to store them (toy boxes and toy bins are overflowing).
I’m embarrassed, but I have to admit that by the time Spring rolls back around that room is a complete mess with almost every inch of space packed with ‘stuff’, and it is once again a daunting task to sort through everything and find a ‘home’ for it so that we can start making good use of this extra living space.
I also get tired of things very fast, so I am constantly rearranging furniture in the house, and the back room is no different. So when we are clearing things out back there and making room, I use that as an opportunity to move furniture around and do a ‘big cleaning’. This of course brings endless arguments from Ray, he readily agrees to clearing a space to live in, but he cannot fathom why I feel the need to constantly change things and move furniture around. And I cannot understand why he can’t just keep his complaints to himself, nod his head in agreement, and put his muscle power to good use. This is not a one-time occurrence, this is every Spring we have the same quarrel. Now, I know the man is a Saint, and there’s a lot he has to tolerate in dealing with me, but I still don’t understand why he can’t just suck it up one more time and do this for me without being disagreeable! And I see no reason to have this same tug-of-war each and every Spring!
Well, with the room only half finished we put it (and the debate) on the back burner.


(EARLY MAY) I took matters into my own hands. I finished cleaning out the back room myself, but I had to recruit my daughter Ellie to help rearrange the furniture (this stubborn mule was not going to make a request of Ray). We have a vintage washstand in the back room that I moved to the other side of the room by myself but then had to enlist Ellie’s help to get it over the threshold and through the door to the kitchen (it’s not heavy but the marble top with the attached mirror is not secured to the base and it kept tipping off the base!). Then Ellie and I cleaned out a big wardrobe I had in the dining room, slid it across the floor and out into the hall, where it sat because we couldn’t slide it on the rug. Ray came in then from his outdoor chores, took one look at the washstand sitting in the middle of the kitchen, and the big wardrobe blocking the hallway, and he looked at me like I was crazy (which by that point I did feel like I was going a little nuts). I don’t know if he felt sorry for me then or if he just didn’t want a repeat of the same old argument, because with the help of my older daughter Katie’s boyfriend he moved the wardrobe out of the hall, through the kitchen, and into the back room without one complaint or eye roll (he did have an evil little smirk though, but I resisted a strong urge to slap that grin off his face). Then Ellie and I moved the washstand into the dining room. And I’m very happy with the rearrangement, I have plenty of storage now in the backroom, and we have a lot more space in the dining room without the big wardrobe there. And all is right in my little world.
Well, except for the fact that I now have the task of finding a spot for everything that was once housed in the wardrobe!



Did we tackle everything on the Weekend Forecast List?
Well…
Saturday:
Hook up water connection to outdoor sink ~ Mission Accomplished! (With Ray making numerous trips to Home Depot!)
Finish cleaning out back room ~ Mission Accomplished!
Rearrange furniture ~ Mission Accomplished!
Change motor on back deck awning ~ ☹ (Unfortunately the sink hook-up took too long and then it rained the next day.)
Sunday:
Plant flowers at cemetery ~ ☹ (Rained out.)
Beach/boardwalk ~ ☹ (Rained out.)

But all in all, it was a fairly productive weekend!

Another Gift For Marcy! Enough With The Pictures Already!

Marcy, please, can you now challenge Ray to paint the living room, dining room, and hall for me? He seems up for every challenge you throw over here!

Friday Favorites

All my favorites that I’m focusing on today were given to us by my brother-in-law Donald.

Donald is an avid beachcomber, and on his beach excursions he finds many treasures. He has found jewelry, toys, beautiful rocks and shells, driftwood, and my most favorite of all his finds is something he made for us out of driftwood and also the beach glass that he picks up. He has brought me tons of beach glass and I love it all. Today I am just highlighting some of the green and white glass that I have separated out from the rest.


Donald is also very handy (I’ve already posted the pictures of the sink base he and my husband made for me), but more than handy, I would say that Donald is an artisan. He made us this hiking stick out of wood he found on the beach, and after carefully carving (whittling, shaving) it, he then wrote some Bible verses on it and drew crosses on the top of it. I’m sorry some of the pictures are blurry, I am certainly not a professional photographer.


For one of our game nights Donald made a beautiful wooden cross as a prize for the winner, and I was lucky enough to be the winner on this particular night. It now hangs in our kitchen.


Donald also made other crosses for a Mardi Gras Night at his church. The Mardi Gras celebration was held soon after he had come back from New Orleans, he had been there with a group from his church volunteering their time to rebuild homes for those devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The group decided to leave the crosses by the door next to the donation box and anyone could take them. My sister-in-law Susie and I were lucky enough to get the last two that were left.
I love that Donald mounted the cross on a triangle pedestal and wrote the Three Persons of The Holy Trinity on the base.




Weekend Forecast:
(Lots on the agenda [mostly for Ray to do] for the weekend [and weather permitting], let’s see how much gets accomplished though!)

Saturday – Finish Cleaning out Back Room
Rearrange Furniture
Hook up water connection to outdoor sink
Change Motor on Back Deck Awning

Sunday - Early Morning Mass
Plant Flowers at Cemetery
Beach/boardwalk