7 Quick Takes Friday – More Good Things in the World

1.  Holy cow.  Someone might have found the bones of John the Baptist!  I really can’t do that story any justice here – just go read it!

2.  Leanne at Provoking Beauty has a great series on the Prayer of St. Francis, and she gave me the honor of contributing!  Several different writers have reflected on each line of the prayer, and mine – “it is in pardoning that we are pardoned” – will be up today.   Every post in the series is good food for thought; I highly encourage all of you to get caught up on them before you read mine.

3. This should give you some idea of how my mind works: At work last Friday, a few of my friends were discussing happy hour plans for that evening.  I hadn’t been invited.  At first I was miffed and wondered why they didn’t invite me, and then I remembered: I was working the evening shift.  Even if they had invited me I wouldn’t have gotten out in time to do anything.  Duh.

4.  I just finished Tomatoland by Barry Eastabrook.  If you didn’t already hate supermarket tomatoes, you will after you read this.   Modern-day slavery, pesticides that cause horrific damage to both field workers and the environment, and all for some pretty lousy fruits. But the book ends on a hopeful note: tomato pickers banded together, took on the growers, and have made some progress in working conditions.  Head over to Mother Earth News to read an excerpt.

5. Speaking of tomatoes, I have my first tomatoes of the season!  I am officially in heaven.

6.  On a lighter note, I just discovered a hilarious new blog: Not Always Working.  Not Always Working is a collection of reader-submitted funny/stupid employee and boss stories.  It’s a companion to Not Always Right, a collection of reader-submittedcustomer stories.  What are some funny blogs you read?

7. TGIF! Time for a song!   This Friday’s song is “Summertime” by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.

For more Quick Takes, go here!

One Lovely Blog Award

January and November at Women for All Seasons have awarded me my first blog award!  Thank you ladies!  I love reading your blog too.

Here are the steps to follow after receiving this award:

• Share who gave it to you with a link back to their blog. (check!)
• Write down seven random facts about yourself.
• Give this award to fifteen other bloggers.
• Let them know they’ve won.
• Pop the award on your blog.

Seven random facts about me:

1. I have 10 cousins, all of whom are younger (and taller) than I am.

2. DH and I met on a blind date.

3. I grew up Catholic, was away from the Church for several years, during which time I met and married DH.

4. I reverted to Catholicism after we’d been married for several years.  Someday I’ll write a post about that.

5. I’m on my second career – got a bachelor’s degree, worked for awhile and then went to graduate school in my late twenties.

6. I am both a cat person and a dog person – I  had dogs as a child and now have cats with DH.  Both are fascinating in their own way.

7.  I’m a fan of all things British and was over the moon when I  heard DH say that all real Jaguars are British Racing Green.  He couldn’t believe I knew that.  :)

I am giving this award to:

What if God Says No

Provoking Beauty

Look! A Black Catholic

This Cross I Embrace

Just Being

Life is Beautiful

Still Strange

Confessions of a Catholic Mutt

The Wedding Picture

One of my favorite pictures of our wedding is the picture of DH’s and my first kiss.  DH is a foot taller than I am; he’s stooping to meet my lips and I’m on tiptoe to meet his.

I love that picture because it says everything.

DH is a neatnik; I’m on the slobby side.  Over the years, I’ve learned that if DH has had a rough day at work, returning home to a messy house just makes it worse.  I make sure the house is clean when he gets home – his definition of clean, not mine.

I used to be terrified of flying; DH loves it.  He never quite understood why I was so scared.  (Neither do I, honey.  It’s a phobia.  Phobias are not supposed to be rational.)  But he held my hand anyway and let me squeeze it so hard I’m surprised I didn’t break his bones.

Often we’ll be performing a task together (the most recent example was bagging groceries) and we’ll start out getting in each other’s way.  After a few minutes, often without even discussing it, we fall into line.  We figure out who does what and the job gets done efficiently.

I stretch.  He bends.  It works.

7 Quick Takes Friday – Good Things in the World

1.  Guess who I saw at Mass last weekend? Father B!  He wasn’t celebrating Mass, he was just in the foyer visiting with parishioners.  He’s looking quite well and might get back to work soon!  DEO GRATIAS!

2. A note about pictures on my blog: the good pictures on my blog come from Flickr’s pictures that are Creative Commons licensed.  I credit the author with his/her Flickr username.  Any bad pictures, however, were taken by me.

3. Anybody else like Sherlock as much as DH and I do?  After the most recent season of Downton Abbey ended, DH and I promptly became addicted to Sherlock.  For those that haven’t seen it, it’s a BBC series of the Sherlock Holmes stories set in modern times.  Holmes is always sending snarky texts and Dr. Watson has a blog, but they still save Lestrade’s rear end every time.   And like Downton Abbey, no new episodes until 2013!  Arrrgh!  British TV producers, why must you torture me????

4.  Did you catch the transit of Venus on Tuesday? If, like me, you missed it, there are some excellent pictures here.

5. Does anybody know how tall cilantro usually gets?  I swear one of my plants is pushing 3 feet.  It has, of course, started flowering, which I don’t mind; the flowers are beautiful, and that means soon it’ll go to seed and I’ll have coriander.

6. Here’s an easy way to increase exposure for Reece’s Rainbow: The Ironman Triathlon is holding a contest called Kona Inspired, in which participants send in videos with the theme “Anything is Possible.”   The winners will participate in the Ironman Triathlon in October as media athletes, which means they’ll be able to share their stories on the nationally televised broadcast of Ironman!  Brady Murray’s video features Reece’s Rainbow and discusses how his son with Down’s Syndrom inspires him!    Go to RodsRacing.org to vote for this video between now and June 18th.

7. TGIF! Time for a song!   This week’s song is “Summer Girls” by LFO.  (I like the occasional ear candy.)

For more Quick Takes, go here!

Not Everything We Want…

I often hear parents of large families say, “My kids don’t have everything they want, but they do have everything they need.”  This thought was rattling around in my head last Friday after a rough week at work.  God, the Father of the largest family in history, has not given me everything I want: a baby, a Catholic husband (yet), a job at a company that’s not run by total nitwits, physical strength, or a winning lottery ticket.  But I do have what I need.

I need opportunities to grow in patience and holiness, and every day either DH or my job provides me with at least one such opportunity.  (No, he doesn’t read my blog, why do you ask?)

I need work that serves the Lord and my fellow man, and I have that, even if the place I currently work drives me crazy.

I need to share the fruits of my labors with others, and my job pays well enough for me to do that.

I need to get over my stubborn pride and learn to ask for help when I need it, and being physically small requires me to do that.  Nothing says humility like needing help opening a jar.

I need a challenge, and verbal sparring with DH is it.  DH and I don’t just argue religion; sometimes when we’re bored we have fake arguments, like whether the correct word is soda or pop¹ or whether Kirk or Picard was a better captain.²

I need to be reminded of divine love, and Stations of the Cross does that in spades.

No, I don’t have everything I want.  But I have everything I need.

“If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?” -Matthew 7:11

1. Pop.
2. Picard, of course.

Why My Husband is Wonderful…

This weekend my clean freak husband neglected his projects to help me build raised garden beds, came up with a way to make the raised beds sturdier, and hauled thirteen 40-lb bags of dirt into our backyard.  (I think I carried a grand total of three such bags.)  And he did all this with a smile on his face.

Life is good!