Hello!

I have an hour and a half of work to get done, but the baby's up and she is nowhere near sleep right now, so I'm here instead.

Adoro, thank you. It is heartbreaking to deal with the pedophilia cases, but it must be done.

My best friend's family is in pretty dire financial straits right now, as is my mom. My family's doing alright. I start working for USDA again in two weeks, I'll get a huge sign on bonus that I think SK and I have decided to pay off one of our credit cards with, and then use said credit card to slowly fix his teeth, hopefully paying it off in full each month, or at least not maxing it out again. So I am very grateful to the Lord for His mercies in my finances. I have promised to start tithing again, but I'm not sure how to do it! We're not members of any church right now, and until I actually join a parish, I don't know how SK would handle my wanting to tithe to the local parish.

How do parishes work, anyway? Do you have to go to the church closest to you? Can you choose a different church? I don't know. I still haven't gone to Mass. Oh, another breakthrough! I had the TV on EWTN last night, and they were showing the Mass of Consecration for the Chapel of Divine Mercy in Chicago. I fell asleep on the couch watching it while SK played World of Warcraft. He was listening to the Mass and to the different speakers, apparently, because when he woke me up to go to bed, he asked me about it. He seemed very upbeat and supportive, said that it had sounded really interesting! So that's cool!

Well, Kate seems like she's about to settle, so God's blessings on you all!
Padre Pio, pray for us!
Sherri

Dropping in for a moment

I probably won't be on very much in the next week or so; of course that may change. I got word from my main contract that she's deluged with work right now, so I expect I will be working every moment that the computer is free for the next week and a half. The bad news about this is that it's child molestation cases; those are always hard. I just try to keep remembering that the work I do helps put the molester in jail, and that God knows that child that's been hurt, and that He will help them.


Please remember me and my family, especially my mother, to the Lord. My mother's in a pretty desperate financial situation right now.

Thanks and God's own peace be upon you,

SMB

I hate Grape KoolAid.

The Menace was on the computer yesterday morning before I was. I sat down to it and started typing, to find a little bit of liquid on the left hand side of the keyboard. No big deal, I thought, and wiped it up. The computer went on working absolutely fine until about four in the afternoon, when I was laying down for a nap and SK wanted to play World of Warcraft. (WoW)

He woke me up because he couldn't get the "c" key to work; once I checked things out, it was painfully obvious that the entire bottom row on the left hand side (I have an ergonomic keyboard) was not working properly. I immediately started popping keys off. SK was sent to Office Depot for canned air, and phone calls were made to the family geek.

Today, we gave up, because it obviously wasn't working properly. We went to Office Depot and bought a new desktop set. New mouse, new keyboard.

I can and will write it off on my taxes (it's a legitimate business expense, as I am working from my home as a transcriptionist) but still, I missed my computer! Thank you Lord for internet history is all I have to say.

Hey, does the sound go out on EWTN for any of y'all? I tried and tried and tried to watch EWTN yesterday afternoon and evening, but there was no sound at all! All the other channels were fine, so I have to think it was a network problem. I could watch it on my computer (like I said, thank you Lord for internet history) but that gets irritating for some reason.

Well, I'm back, anyway, and I hope you all had a great weekend. God Bless you!
SMB

I Can Haz Podcasts! Yay!

Today I discovered the podcasts on EWTN! It's great! Right now I'm listening to a podcast of Father Mitch Pacwa from the radio program on EWTN Radio where he answers questions. It's awesome!

Let me just say that I appreciate the comments left by Adoro Te Devote very much, and that if anyone else has any comments/questions/advice for me, I'm open to them.

One of the things that the husband, heretofore known as SK (SpiderKiller) has against the Church are some of the abuses that he personally has seen going on in other parts of the world. He has been wonderful about some things (I've put up a screensaver with Catholic images and a desktop of the Sacred Heart) even telling me that he's not totally against the Church when I told him that I was afraid of his response to my putting these things up on the computer. (I put things like that up. He doesn't know how. I have the power, lol.) It's just that he was stationed in the Phillippines in the early '80s, and he's seen people crucifying themselves at Easter, flagellating themselves, etc., and he's heard priests over there encourage that type of thing. In his eyes, that's the Church, for the most part; and all I can do is say that I know that that sort of thing is wrong, that I know that there have been and probably still are abuses done every day but that the Church in its entirety, as a Body, refutes those things and says they're wrong.

I believe that Christ and the Blessed Mother and Padre Pio are working on him, it's just taking some time.

On the other hand, I have my mother telling me about Malachi Martin and how I should read some of his books or whatever. Look, I looked him up on Google, and he said that he thought the last five Popes were AntiChrists? What? How can ANYONE think that Pope John Paul the Second was Anti-Christian? That makes no sense to me.
I asked my mom straight out what she would think if I converted.
She had no real answer. I know she wouldn't cast me out or anything, but I don't want to hurt her, either...but if it comes to the point where her opinion is the only thing holding me back, she's going to lose to Christ. Period.

Please keep me and my family in your prayers.
God Bless you all,
SMB

I gaffed off Aquinas last night

In favor of Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. Wow. How she could go on with the work amazes me, when I fall by the wayside so often.

In other news, I've been doing all this reading the past few days, and what comes on History International last night but a short film about Fatima. Coinicidence? I mentioned it to SK and he, too, thought it was awfully coincidental. Especially since the TV is usually tuned into kids' shows and that was the first time I've had it on HI in the afternoon in weeks.

I haven't told SK yet, but I want to go to Mass. I've watched it on TV, (EWTN) and I want to go. Maybe actually being there would help with some of the issues I have yet: Adoration. I know it's because I was raised Protestant, but Adoration is one of the few things I have problems with.

Communion of Saints? Got it, understood.
Marian reverence? She deserves it. Still a little iffy on the Assumption, but working on it.
Body and Blood of Christ? I'm wrapping my head around it. Again, raised Protestant.
Adoration? That may take me a while.

On phone with Mom. May be back later...God Bless you all if I don't...

Dude! Domino's is online now! Yay!

Yes, that's news to me, and quite welcome news at that.

The Menace received 4 medals and several paper commendations at his awards ceremony today. His teacher told SpiderKiller that, had Dennis not gone through his "gaffing it off" phase, he would have been the best student in her class. As it is, he missed A-B honor roll by 1 point because he gaffed off his English work for the first half of the last quarter.

Still searching for the "right" rosary. Ebay and the online Catholic stores have been burnt up. *le Sigh* I want a ladder rosary. I'm very drawn to one I saw on Ebay that's made out of stones from Medjugorje. It's a little much for me right now though. Maybe later this year.

No great insights today, I'm afraid; just looking at things.

I'm hoping and praying that SK takes the time sometime this weekend to start reading Rome Sweet Home. I got it from the library last week. That's how I was able to start a conversation about transubstantiation with him...and at one point heard this:

Me: "I'm not saying let's rush out and take instruction, okay?"
Him: "I'm not saying we shouldn't!!"

So score one for prayer. He's at least listening to me.
Tonight, I think while he's playing WoW, I will be reading Thomas Aquinas. I got him from the library too. I'm going to try hard to wrap my head around the writings; I don't know how well I'll do, but I'm going to try.

I need to order Orthodoxy by Chesterton, too; and maybe The Man who was Thursday, if I can't find them in the library. I definitely need to try to find a copy of "Hail Holy Queen." That's one thing SK is sort of in tune with me about; that the Blessed Mother deserves more veneration in the Protestant Church than she currently receives.

Oh, I tried to talk to my mother about the Eucharist, too, but somehow she got distracted into thinking we were talking about something else. We're supposed to talk again soon about it.
I don't know if I'll be able to post again this weekend, so be well and be blessed!
SMB

Last day of school...

Dennis the Menace will be home very shortly, as today is the last day of school. I'm of mixed emotions about that. On one hand, I'm glad he's getting a break; on the other, I'm really not looking forward to hearing him whine all summer. I've no idea WHERE he learned it, but my kid can whine with the best of them.

I'm looking on Ebay for a new rosary. I want a pretty one; I'd really like a ladder rosary. I think they're very nice.

I just got up about an hour ago, (I haven't even had coffee yet) and nothing interesting has happened yet, so God be with you all and I will try to post something interesting later.
Thanks!
SMB

A general Hello and the water's fine, thanks...

Hi!
If you're reading this blog, then I can only assume that you are, like me, at least interested in the Roman Catholic Church and found this using Google. Thank you, God, for Google. If you're not, then you must be here for the chocolove. Sorry, not going there at the moment...wait a day or two, would ya?

The long and the short of it is that I'm exactly what the "About Me" says I am; mother of two, wife of one, and kind of stuck on the path between Protestantism and Catholicism for several reasons, not the least of which is my mother will KILL me if I convert. My husband used to be DEAD SET against it, but is softening.

Mom was brought up CoC (Church of Christ) and sweet Lord have mercy, she's pretty virulently anti-conversion. Not anti-Catholic per se, as she's had Catholic friends in the past, but she's concerned about several different issues, not the least of which is the BVM.

Speaking of whom, I had an interesting insight/imagery today while praying my rosary, which I really should and am going to start doing more often.

Today is the Luminous Mysteries, according to my knowledge; (if I'm wrong, someone needs to correct me, please) and I was in the midst of meditating on the Wedding at Cana when I got this great image of the whole thing in my head. It was pretty awesome.

Yeshua comes to his mother with outstretched arms, hugging her tightly. She's so glad to see him; he's been gone now for at least a month or two (40 days in the desert) and while he's thin, he's her boy, and she loves him and is overjoyed that he remembered the wedding. He and his new friends are welcomed by the families of the bride and groom, and they all enjoy the ceremony reverently. This is a great covenant being made before YHWH, the Lord, and a serious time.

The feast afterwards, however, is not. Everyone is laughing and talking about things the groom or the bride have done in the past, enjoying themselves, reminiscing, when the lord of the feast comes to Mary.

"I don't know how this happened, but we're running out of wine," he says nervously. Why would he have come to her to tell her? Was she related to him somehow? Was she the neighbor woman who fixed everything? (You know the type.) She looked at him, wondering what she could do. It was too late to go buy more. She couldn't think of a wedding she'd been to that had run out of wine. That was the prime staple!

She went back to her seat, next to her Son, who is talking energetically with his friend Simon. She tugs on his sleeve. He holds his hand up to Simon, who is expounding on some point ~ Hang on a second, k? ~
"Yes, Mother?"
"They're out of wine." Did she mean to actively ask for his help at that point? I don't know. Maybe she was just telling him. At no point in the Scripture does she actually ask him to do anything about it. Read it for yourself, it's in the second chapter of John. I just double checked that.

WARNING: What follows is partially conjecture on the writer's part, loosely based on Scripture.

Now he says "What does that have to do with Me? My time is not yet come." What exactly does that mean, here? I personally can't see Jesus being all "Talk to the hand, yo," about a friend's wedding feast. I think He was actually kind of asking His Mother, "Well, Mama, what do you want Me to do about it?" Maybe even "What can I do about that?"

Yeshua was a very loving person. He would not have wanted shame or dishonor to fall on anyone, especially over such a silly problem, and especially not on a friend or relative. Notice that He never tells her what He's going to do, or even if He's going to do anything. She just knows, the way a mother does, she knows her Son's heart. She knows He's going to do something about it. THAT is when she goes to the servants and tells them to do whatever He says for them to.

I guess it meant, to me anyway, for me to remember that being His Mother means that she knows Her Son's heart; she knows His ways, better than any other mortal in the universe possibly could. She was trying to show me, also, that He cares about even my piddly crap. His first miracle was performed to save someone from being made fun of, basically. That's pretty piddly when you compare it to raising Lazarus, or healing the woman with the withered hand, or even paying His Temple tax. He did it to keep someone from looking like a fool, and to make His mama happy.

I just thought that was kind of interesting; I wish you could have seen it the way it was in my head. It was very vivid.

That's about it for now; hope to see you again tomorrow!
SMB