Another blizzard? Yep!

Who would have thought that two weeks after the last blizzard, we'd have another one so quickly!

12-14 inches of snow, and blowing wind for two days, and my husband had to call in to work on Christmas day (missing his double time!) because we couldn't get out of the driveway! We started out to mass on Christmas Eve, and decided that we should probably stay home (it's not a holy day of obligation, anyway) and sure enough, an hour later, our driveway had blown shut. We did our own little readings, and read "The Night Before Christmas" and opened one present each before heading off to bed.

Two days of being snowed in with new Christmas presents is a good way to spend a blizzard, I think! We had a wonderful meal, we played, and relaxed and got all the laundry caught up. I even had a chance to finish up a couple of knit/crochet projects. The kids were having fun, everyone played nice, and a good time was had by all. I will definitely remember this Christmas for a long time!

Yesterday, my husband and I were able to shovel out the driveway, then make it to the grocery store for some milk. On the way back into the driveway, we got stuck across the street in the neighbor's driveway (we had needed to back up to gain enough momentum to get up our own driveway). Several neighbors came to help us out, and with the aid of some good old sand, finally got into the garage. That's what it's all about. Helping hands, kind words and friendliness. They go a long way!

Snow days!

Wow. We have had some major snow in the last two days. It started on Tuesday, and ended around noon today. Around 10 inches, and lots of wind. It was officially a blizzard!

So now we have had two days of no school.

Lord help me there is no school tomorrow, either.

It has been a rough two days. My husband worked yesterday, and we were stuck inside all day. I found myself in tears several times.

It wasn't until late afternoon that it occurred to me to pray. God heard me. My children settled down, I stopped crying, and I even smiled a time or two.

I'll make sure to pray before I get out of bed tomorrow. It's gonna be a long one!

Decoration Dilemma

Ok. We all know that Christmas doesn't really start until Christmas day, right? I mean, it doesn't start when you see the first Christmas decorations in the store. It isn't the day after Thanksgiving, either. The Twelve Days of Christmas are actually the twelve days from Christmas day to Epiphany on January 6th.

So my dilemma every year is when to put up the tree?

Before we were "practicing" our faith regularly, we got into the tradition of putting the tree up the weekend of Thanksgiving, and decorating the entire house. But as the kids kept coming, and there was always a relatively small child around, it has become harder and harder to deal with the tree and all the trimmings for the entire month of December!

Then, we would take the tree down the weekend of New Year's, and Christmas was officially over.

But, really, the celebration of Christmas is a time to reflect on the birth of our Lord Jesus. The commercialism of this holiday has really gotten out of hand to the point that the day after Halloween, there's already Christmas candy in the grocery stores.

So this year, we compromised. We put up the tree, we put lights on the house, but the stockings will be hung and baby Jesus will go into the nativity scene on Christmas Eve. Maybe that will help us remember that the thing we are really looking forward to is the Gift that we have recieved in Jesus and not on the trappings, so much.

I hope that next year, we can forgo more of the trappings (namely, the tree) until a little closer to Christmas.

It's a struggle for me as a Catholic mom sometimes. I love the Christmas season. I love to shop, I love to decorate, I love to bake. But I want to recognize the holiday for what it is, not just for what it has turned into. And I want my children to understand that, as well. It's becoming harder and harder to hold our faith up in this over commercialized and multi media circus that is America these days.

For now, we'll enjoy the lights and the tree, and each other. Advent is a time of preparation, after all. We can prepare ourselves for His coming, and enjoy the trimmings of the season at the same time.

No planning = insanity for mom.

I love my children. Really.

But, when school is out for even a day, it's chaos.

My six year old son needs structure. He needs lots of attention. And when there are five other children vying for that attention, things can go downhill fast. Like when I woke up this morning, and came into the dining room, the first thing I saw was said six year old knee deep in paper scraps and staples. He was making a "turkey" for Thanksgiving. I was not a happy mom. And when I told him we needed to clean up before we could get anything else done (like go anywhere or even breath)he got mad and basically threw a big fit.

Just a side note: Don't ever pray for patience. God will willingly give you every chance He can to practice patience.

So, long story short, he spent several minutes of his first half hour out of bed back in his room in time out.

Not a great start to the day. Where am I going with this? Organization is the key to a happy mom. On those days when you know there is no school (or for homeschooling families on those days when you don't hold school), plan ahead!! What did I do the night before I knew there would be no school? I went to the scrap book store and worked on my scrapbooks. When I came home, did I clean up the kitchen and dining room so we would have a fresh start to the day? No, I dumped my stuff on the dining room table, and went to my room and watched tv. Sloth, anyone?

I am definitely paying for it today. We spent the first hours out of bed cleaning up. Now the house is clean, but I don't feel like doing anything but crawling back in bed! If I had cleaned as I went last night, this morning would have run so much more smoothly.

Important points to remember:
plan ahead!
clean as you go.
if you don't want anyone messing with your scrapbooking stuff, put it away.
don't pray for patience.

God Bless, and Happy Thanksgiving! I'm going to go plan my grocery shopping and cooking now.

Let's talk about sin, baby!

Ok, I have to say that I am a sinner. Duh, right?

Well, I have been thinking about this since it started getting colder that lent is coming (I know, I know, it's not even Advent yet, but still), and I am getting closer to that time when I try to give up something for God.

Which brings me to sin. I am a good person, but very sinful! My daughter learned an acronym to help her remember the 7 deadly sins at school.

EGGSLAP.

Envy
Greed
Gluttony
Sloth
Lust
Anger
Pride

As I think every night before I go to bed, and review my day, several of these seem to pop up over and over again.

Envy. Greed. Gluttony. Sloth. Anger.

I am envious of those that have more than me, or nicer houses than me or nicer clothes, or skinnier bodies.

I am greedy with my food, my money, my time.

I eat to excess much of the time.

I would much rather sit on the couch and watch tv or a movie, or work on my scrapbooks or knit and crochet than just about anything.

I always rise to anger before I think about the situation.

So I urge you to go over your EGGSLAP list every night. When you come across those sins that seem to repeat and repeat, pray about them. I find myself realizing that I can avoid those sins much easier if I'm aware of them.

Now, Lent. I plan on giving up soda, and fast food. I am recording this here, for posterity, because I know that if I have it written down, I am so much more likely to follow through. I hope that by giving up these two things, I will be able to start to get a handle on my gluttony and greed, at least.

Pray for me!

MOMS night out!

Last night we (my MOMS group) went to Village Inn for our first night out. We took an eight week class so to speak, and now we are venturing out on our own to form a network of support for ourselves both spiritually, and socially.

Plus it was free pie night!

Anyway, we really had a fun time getting to know each other better.

MOMS stands for Ministry Of Mothers Sharing. It's a program that allows you to form a support group of sorts for you and other moms to help you get through life's joys and disappointments. It is such a wonderful feeling to know that I'm not alone in my struggles.

As a catholic mom, it's easy to feel the guilt of my failures. I feel a strong need to lead my children into their faith and teach them by example. But when I feel like I'm on my own, it's much harder to hold myself to the standard I want to achieve. My husband is very much there, but he doesn't know what it's like to be a stay home parent. I'm very glad to have my catholic community (especially my MOMS) there to suppport me.

For that I am truly grateful.

Housework

Blech. Why must I sweep my floor ten billion times a day? Why is there always a stack of dirty dishrags on the back of my sink? Why is the pasta pot always dirty on the stove? Why is the bathroom rug always slightly damp?

Well, I have many children. It takes many meals to feed six children, and I feed them five times a day. I do a lot of dishes! We love noodles, and "bath day" is quite a romp around here. So, I deal with lots of dirty dishes, and lots of laundry.

I do on average, four loads of laundry a day.

I do a load and a half of dishes a day, plus pots.

I sweep the kitchen floor three times a day, at least.

And we are always out of towels.

Is that frustrating? Um...yeah. But it's what I do. As a layperson in the church, my calling is to live as a married woman. We feel that it's financially better and just better for my family to stay home. So I look after my family. I cook, clean, sew on buttons (when I remember) and try to keep on top of the laundry.

I just needed to remind myself why it's important to go sweep. Again. And fold the mountain of laundry on my couch. Again. And go load the dishwasher. Again.

Shopping

So I took my 4 year old and the baby to the mall today. We planned on just shopping around and playing in the play area for a bit then going home.

I am always just amazed at the sheer number of stores in the mall, let alone the millions of items for sale!

I'm a pretty simple person. I don't spend a ton of money on "stuff", unless it's for scrapbooking. Or yarn. Or sometimes books. But really. Does anyone need the same exact shoes offered in 15 different colors? Or "boots" that don't even cover your toes? Obviously, I was shopping for shoes. And the styles! Metallic, canvas, leather and plastic. And the ubiquitous "man-made materials", whatever those might entail. I just wanted black or brown leather loafer type shoes.

I spent a good half hour just trying to find plain black loafers that didn't have buckles, or tassels, or fringe (penny loafers, anyone?) or that were made of something thicker than the fabric of my shirt. And this after spending the last several weeks scouring the other "department" stores (by this I mean Walmart and Target, not Dillard's or Younkers!) and not finding my simple shoes.

I finally found some, at my shoe store of choice, Payless. Not leather, but not covered in spangles, either.

I miss simpler times where if you wanted to pick a color, it was basically white, black or brown. Maybe red for the flashy ones. I do like red, though. Zebra stripes? Not so much.

And shoe shopping with a four year old and a sleepy 14 month old was perilous. I half expected to come home to see little mister with two different shoes on, and neither of them ours. But I managed to buy two pairs of shoes for under $25 (love that BOGO sale!) and come home with all the correct pairs.

Now I get to go weed out the shoe rack.

Anyway, I got this in an email today, and it seems to fit in to my feelings about shopping these last few weeks before Christmas.

> Subject: Fw: Twas the month before Christmas
>
>
> Twas the month before Christmas,
> When all through our land,
> Not a Christian was praying
> Nor taking a stand.
>
> See the PC Police had taken away,
> The reason for Christmas, in a quiet, sly way.
> The children were told by their schools not to sing,
> About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.
>
> "It might hurt people's feelings," the teachers would say
> "December 25th is just a school 'Holiday'."
> Yet the shoppers were ready with checks, credit, cash,
> Ready to make their gift buying dash!
>
> CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, a Wii.
> Something was changing, what could it be?
> Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
> In hopes to sell books by Franken and Fonda..
>
> The Targets were hanging their trees upside down,
> At Lowe's the word Christmas - was nowhere to be found.*
> At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears,
> You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.*
> Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty,
> Are words that were used to intimidate me.
> Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf, Blitzen.
> On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!
>
> At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter,
> To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.
> And we spoke not a word as they removed our faith,
> Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace.
>
> The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded,
> The reason for the season, stopped before it started.
> So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' beside your 'Dream Tree',
> Think of times past and listen to me.
> Choose your words carefully,
> Choose what you say.
> Wish a MERRY CHRISTMAS to all,
> Not "Happy Holiday"!
> As Christians we must join together and say,
> Enough! Stop! Give us back our Holiday!!
> It's time that you stop and listen to reason,
> For Christ is the basis for the Christ-mas Season!

My inaugural post. Fun!

I decided to start this blog, because I just didn't feel like I had another place to get some of this stuff out. I love being Catholic, but I am somewhat of a minority among even my catholic friends in that I have a large family. Six children, ages 1 to 14. They are all very individual, yet very much the same. Their lives and mine as their catholic mom, take up most of my time. I am a wife, as well, but honestly, my husband is pretty undemanding, so most of this will probably be ramblings about my momness.

So far, I don't have any grand theme or scheme or whatever. I'll just pop in here every so often and spout some thoughts and move on.

I guess that's it for today! God bless.