In the New Year I will......

I have decided that I am going to ask my family that we all try not to say anything negative to, or about, someone inside of our home. I know this is a big, huge task, but I want us all to try.

For my own self, I am going to try not to say anything negative about any one, inside or outside my home. I am writing this because I want to be held accountable to all of you. This way I can share my journey and you all get to keep me on track! Are you up for the challenge?

I know I will still think things, but if I can keep them from coming from my mouth, I will have changed a part of my heart!

I ask my guardian angel to please help me, and God please send me the graces needed.

Anyone else willing to share their personal goal for next year?

Happy and Blessed New Year,to all of you. May God pour His blessings on you, your families and your communities!

Dale

I know that bury the dead is one of the works of mercy, and as a missionary of mercy, I am expected to do that. Unfortunately today we said goodbye to a gentleman who has been living at the mission for the last fifteen years.

Ironically, I met Dale about ten years ago on New Years day. It was our first New Year's at the mission as a family. There was a big dinner and anyone who wanted to come and have dinner was invited. Dave was working nights at the time, and that year it was his turn to work New Year's Eve, so he was sleeping but I took the kids to the dinner. My oldest was eleven, the youngest at that time was about two and I was pregnant with our seventh child. It was crowded but the food was plentiful and the kids and I were excited to be a part of it. We filled a table easily, and began to eat. Dale walked over with his meal and sat with us. I didn't know him. I had never even seen him before, but I thought he was really brave to sit with a large family, sprawling with kids. I even said to him, "You might regret sitting here. The kids can be rambunctious at times!" He just smiled and said he was happy to sit with a family.

I looked at his face. It was leathered, worn, and red, the kind of skin that alcoholics have. All his worldly possessions he carried in his backpack. He ate quietly, sometimes amused at the antics of my children, but he was content. He listened to our conversations and we passed him the condiments, asked him if he needed some pop, and basically just made him a part of our family for that meal. When we got up to leave, he thanked me for letting him sit with us. He said he hadn't been a part of a family for a long time, and it was nice to be with us.

Yeah, I went home and cried. I never forgot that. I didn't see him for awhile, and then for years I saw him all the time. He collected pop cans and bottles for a little income, and I think when he would see my van pull in, he knew that he had hit the jackpot!! There was always pop cans or bottles rolling around my floor. I would tell him, "I don't know how many I have, but you are welcome to any that I do have."

He started off calling me "Mrs.", but the last two years he called me Michelle. I would pull up for Mass or something that was going on, and he would smile, always greet me with a smile. This past year he was so sick, I thought we had lost him a few times, so when I did see him, I started giving him great big hugs. He told me I was holy. I just loved him. I could see the deep suffering, the years an addiction can take on a soul. I don't know his story, never will, I just loved him.

My guys at the mission, they see me as mom. Some let me hug them. Some just want me to listen and laugh at their stories. They just want to be loved. I can't judge them. I can't say "tsk, tsk. It's their own fault for drinking or drugging". One thing I have learned by being at the mission, we don't know what people carry with them. We don't know the pain of loss and hurts from childhood and beyond. I can't judge. Only love.

Dale was one of the men who have taught me how to love and not judge. In the world he was seen as a throwaway.

But to me, he was someone I loved.

Rest In Peace Dale.

Tyler's 16th Birthday

Today is my oldest son Tyler's birthday. His sixteenth birthday to be exact. He wanted to go to the Sabres game and the Anchor Bar for chicken wings. Everyone knows that Buffalo invented the deep fried chicken wing, and the Anchor Bar is the place that began it all. Yum!

The Sabres game was exciting. We were down three to zero, and then our guys started going to town. The game ended with us winning four to three. Totally and unbelievably awesome! What a game. And to be there at the arena was exciting too. The crowd was on fire after the first two goals for our team. So much fun.

Here in cold, cold Buffalo this is what we look forward to. It doesn't get any better than chicken wings and the Sabres. On your sixteenth birthday.

Tyler brought me back to hockey. When I was a little girl my dad would take me to the games. But then I lost my love of the game. Then I had a boy. And he is a sports fanatic. I am not into football at all. As a matter of fact, I hate football. Too complicated and too long.

But hockey moves fast. And doesn't last forever while the guys stand around in a huddle talking about what they are going to do after the game. That's what happens in football. BORING! Hockey moves. Plus they fight. Really whack each other sometimes. I love that. (It's my inner aggression being played out.)

So Tyler got me back into hockey and we all love it. As a family.

I can't believe that it has been sixteen years that I have had this boy in my life. I remember when I brought him home and walked him in the kitchen. I just stared at him and thought, "I have a little boy!" I was so very happy. I loved his little baby face, big blue eyes looking up at me.

Now he is so tall, I have to look up at him. And tonight, he let me hug him.

Happy Birthday Tyler Louis! I love you.

Singing the Praises of itunes!!!!

Today I am going to sing the praises of itunes/apple. But first I must tell you my sorry story.

My plan for today was going to be cleaning my room and doing laundry. Then my eleven year old, John Paul, reminded me that I told him that I would take him to Big Lots to check out their MP3 players. He only had a certain amount of Christmas money to spend and he really wanted one. I was not really convinced that we would be purchasing a quality product but off we went.

The woman behind the counter practically fell out laughing. Sold out. Long time ago. Try Kmart. Ok. Kmart is around the bend, so we went. Nothing left from the Christmas rush, and the after Christmas rush. Now I am looking at this boy's face. He was so disappointed. Well, what would it hurt me if we drove over to Target. So I called my oldest daughter Emily, gave her instructions for lunch and headed the van in the direction of Target.

"Mom, I know this wasn't what you had planned for your day, but thank you for driving me around." He said this so sadly and sweetly. My heart broke and melted at the same time. I was now on a mission to find this boy an inexpensive MP3 player!

Target did not have what he wanted in his price range either. So I bought us a popcorn and two pops and said, "Let's go to Best Buy".

As he was getting into the van he tripped and spilled his pop all over the van floor. I could see in his face, he was about to cry. The tears were welling up. I said very gently,"It's okay Johnny, here, share mine."

So we were on our way to Best Buy, he was holding our bag of popcorn, and I took a rough turn, and wouldn't you know, the popcorn falls. I kid you not, this boy was having a really bad day. And now the tears came. I said, "John, this was not your fault. It was mommy's fault. And you only spilled a little. Don't be upset. Mommy is not upset with you. Don't worry."

Now I begin praying that I can find an inexpensive MP3 player that I can afford to help him out with, cause there was no way I was going to let that boy go home without one!!

So we get to Best Buy, and there was something he could be happy about, and I chipped in, started him off with a $15 itunes giftcard and we happily drove home. He was so excited because it had a lot of features he wanted, even though it wasn't a touch screen, (which is what he was looking for, but only having $70 in Christmas money, could not afford) and he was very satisfied with his purchase.

Now for most people this would be their happy ending, but, alas, we are Marciniaks so there is always more to the tale. I went off to do laundry and John Paul went off to use my computer to start using his itunes card. A short while later, Tyler calls to me, and tells me that John Paul used a butter knife to rub off the activation number. You know that area on the back of a gift card that says, "Gently rub with coin", the operative words being "gently" and "coin"! Yeah. He massacred it.

One hour on the computer, three phone calls and an email later, I sent a message to someone at the itunes, apple company. My dear hubby had an itunes giftcard for $15 that he had received for Christmas so he gave it to John until our issue was resolved.

And now this is why I love itunes/apple. Less than 2 hours later, I had a response in my email with our number, (there was a code on the bottom of the card that I had emailed in and from that they could get my activation code) and thanks to a very friendly worker named Charlie, my hubby typed in the number and received our credit to itunes! I love them and I want you all to love them too. What a great company! They were awesome!

And I did get my bedroom clean and some laundry done.

Yep, super mom wins again!

It's a Wonderful, Wonderful Life

My life has been crazy busy. But in a good way. Our Christmas was awesome. I will begin our Christmas journey tonight by writing about the eve of Christmas Eve. I baked cookies until 4am. I had so much fun! I listened to Delilah until midnight and then just Christmas music.

I made cookies for fourteen families. That's a lot of cookies. Well, some families. But also the men's residence at the mission, for homeless men. And the residence for men in recovery. Also the residence where the missionary women care for children of single moms. Let's just say, it takes a whole heck of a lot of cookies to make enough for everyone that I give cookies to. Hence the reason why I was up until 4am baking them. Wouldn't have it any other way.

I make mexican wedding cakes, hello dollies, thumbprints, peanut butter blossoms and turnover cookies. My turnover cookies are the biggest hit. I don't even know why I bother making anything else. That's all anyone ever wants. They are good.

It's a cream cheese dough and in the middle is either, pineapple, strawberry, or raspberry preserves. Oooh, they are good! Shaped like turnovers. Mini turnovers.

Delicious.

Like the Sabres win tonight. Absolutely delicious.

Oops. Forgot to Bless Another Faithful Reader

Merry Christmas to Kimberly! God bless you and your precious family!

Special Merry Christmas Blessings

Having a fun day playing board games with the kids. So only enough time to say a special Christmas wish for three new friends I have made in blogger world. God's peace, joy and blessings to Anne, Allison and Christopher. Looking forward to "conversing" even more with you in the new year. Plus reading more of Anne's prose, hearing all about Allison's wedding, and watching Christopher cry as the Caps lose and the Sabres win the Stanley!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. God's peace and blessings to all.

Merry Christmas to All

We are off as a family to go serve a hot meal to families who have no where to go on Christmas Eve. I hear Santa may even be making an appearance. He's gotta have a hot meal before he takes that long trip you know.

God bless to all of you my dear, dear readers. Have a very blessed Christams Eve.

So Busy Baking

So busy baking. Forgot to write!!!!




Listen and discuss amongst yourself. I've got mexican wedding cakes in the oven.

Just About Done

John Paul and I got so much done tonight. We were shopping maniacs!

I began my cookie baking palooza.

I am surprising one of my missionary brothers by making him a batch of cookies his mom made when he was a kid. He is an awesome brother in Christ, from a big family, and he was telling us one night about this wonderful cookie his mom would make with dates and nuts, in a pinwheel fashion. So I looked it up on line, saved the recipe and held onto it for a Christmas surprise for him.

I have them chilling in the fridge right now. I am exhausted and I hope I made them right. On top of not ever making them before, I don't know if I am gonna like dates or not, so I might not even be able to tell after baking them if they are good or not!!!

Hoping for the best here kids.

Ok. Believe it or not, Teresa is still waiting for me to rock her!

So off I go. I have to get to bed myself. Tomorrow I will be a baking maniac!

The Stupids Do Christmas

Ok. There is a book series that my hubby read when he was a little boy. It was about a family called the Stupids, and basically they just did everything wrong. So when a million things go wrong in our family, and we end up just working against ourselves, we say, "The Stupids go to the park", or "The Stupids take a road trip".

This time. It's the Stupids do Christmas. Today, I spent most of my afternoon in Dave's emergency room. Because of a kidney stone. Dave, by the way, was not in attendance as he was at home, puking his poor guts out. Yes, another one bites the dust. He has it now too.

After pain meds, anti nausea meds, and a ct scan, they sent me on my way with a script in case the little buggers still inside of me decide to come out. I am hoping that happens after Christmas.

I still managed to get most of the shopping done with most of the children. Tomorrow John Paul and I will finish up.

How does she do it, you are all asking yourselves? I have no flippin idea how I do it. I guess it's because Polish women are strong, I mean we used to have our babies in the onion fields and then keep right on working. Or whatever it was Polish women helped farm. Maybe beets. Or garlic.

At any rate, a woman who has birthed nine babies, knows how to get up off a gurney, and head for the nearest Target with three kids in tow. You do what you gotta do.

And heck, everything is on sale right now for those last minute purchases.

At least the Stupids will have some nice gifts to give each other on Jesus' birthday.

Forget About UPS, Call The Marciniaks!

We had to set up the deliveries tonight at the mission. Just for some of the families we take care of. When we took the job over it used to take hours upon hours, now we have a crew of our oldest children and we get it done in no time.

So now I get to start preparing for my own family. Tomorrow I will take the children out in groups, and we will buy for whichever name we picked. We pray for the person we picked throughout advent. But it is the sweetest thing, the children get so excited to see if the brother or sister, or mom and dad, (whoever they chose), gets excited over what they purchased for them. They each take their time choosing just the right gift for each other. It is the BEST!

And I will start my baking tomorrow night, as long as I am not exhausted after all that shopping. It usually takes me all day to shop with the kids. I can't take them all together because they have each other's names, so I have to coordinate it. But I love every second of it. And now that my Emily is old enough, she takes whoever gets my name and helps them. The girl has taste so I always get something awesome! She knows what mama likes!

If I don't start my baking tomorrow then I will on Tuesday. I bake a lot. But I will write more about that tomorrow.

Have to run and write out just a few more Christmas cards. Or maybe since it is eleven at night, I should try and get my four year old to sleep!

She loves her cuddle time with mom.

Gotta run, Teresa is awaiting!

Toys, toys, and more toys!

It's been a long two weeks. This last week has been especially long. With my children getting the stomach bug and then at the same time, trying to get all the toys ready for 550 families, yes, 550 families. Each family had at least two children, but most were five or more, so literally thousands of kids got toys from us these last two days.

The most fun thing was seeing the moms whose boxes I filled with toys. It was funny because here I am, a mom with a huge family, and I would end up getting the huge families. And I hooked these kids up! With each toy I would think about my own kids, if they would like it, would they get joy out of it if it were them receiving the toys? We worked so hard, especially the last couple of days. We had our Christmas music blasting as we "shopped" and filled boxes with toys and stuffed animals for the children. It was hard work, I pushed myself harder than I ever have, but it was totally worth it.

On the first day of the giveaway, I saw the girl that I had given my cross to at the Thanksgiving food giveaway. I never thought I would see her again. When she saw me, it was like she was seeing a movie star. She poked her mom, and stared at me with such a precious smile. She was saying to her mom, "That's the one". I looked at her as she was walking away and I said, "Aren't you the one I gave my cross to?" She smiled so excitedly, happy that I remembered her, and said "Yes, I still have it. It's hanging in my car!" Then she walked up the stairs to get toys for her little girl, and she kept looking back at me, like she could not believe her eyes. I wanted to cry, it was so humbling. She was looking at me like one looks at a kindly saint. I knew in an instant how Blessed Mother Teresa must have felt. I bet it happened to her all the time. What an honor.

There were so many precious moments. People who just wanted to talk. People who were so grateful, they cried. Mama's who could barely walk because of injuries, but they climbed the stairs to get toys for their children.

We were able to give every child a wonderful new toy, a big ticket item, and then smaller things, like stuffed animals, coloring books, crayons, silly putty, play jewelry, play dough, etc. I was so happy to be a part of it. Working for Jesus. It was wonderful. The two women I work with are joyful, and absolutely amazing.

So many people helped. Benefactors, people who donated large amounts, people who gave the little they could. All of it helped provide joy to many, many children. God is not only good, He is amazing!

I am sure I will write more about this, but this is it for now. I still have one more duty for the mission tomorrow. My family, hubby, two eldest daughters, their boyfriends, and I will be setting up all the gifts that will be delivered to what we call "mission families", families who live in a mission house, missionary families, and families of missionaries. (It makes sense to me!)

Getting closer to His coming. Make sure your heart is ready with love.

Prepare ye the way of the Lord.

Share My Music Friday

I had a wonderful day, serving the Lord. I worked long hours and I worked hard. I saw Jesus in so many faces today. So many relieved moms and dads, happy to get things to give to their children. What a blessing! How great is our God.

Come to Bethlehem and see......

I Can See The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

We are down to one puking child. The boys were all fine today. In fact, Tyler, my boy who is almost sixteen asked if I could get him "Louies" for dinner. For those of you who are not from around here, that would be a hot dog place. Yeah, the boy actually wanted me to get him hot dogs for dinner when less than twenty-four hours ago he was puking his guts out.

Aaaah. The joys of having sons!! Unfortunately my little Amelia, age six, came down with it early this morning, five in the morning to be exact. She threw up a few times, stopped for a couple of hours, puked again at noon, and then was fine. Until we put her to bed at nine. Then she tossed her saltines.

She is the last one. Well, Liz, Dave and I did not get it at all. Probably I have been spared because my hands have been in scorching hot bleach water all day. I have done about ten loads of towels, and blankets, and sheets, with plenty of bleach.

Bleaching the tables, bleaching the counter tops. Spraying Lysol like a woman who has bought stock in the product!

Tomorrow is the toy give away. I will be downstairs at the mission, smiling, and wishing moms and dads a Merry Christmas. God blessing them. Letting them know that Jesus does really love them. They are not forgotten.

My older kids, God bless them, will be holding down the fort. With only one sick, I feel pretty okay about leaving them to give out toys. Besides, I think by the morn, she will be fine too. Right now she is sleeping, snuggled up on recliner. Big sister will sleep on the couch.

Everyone chips in here. That's what we do.

We are a missionary family. And I am proud of that.

Another Four Bite the Dust...

It is a pukepalooza here at the Marciniak's. Jake, Ty and Joe started this afternoon. Mary started this evening.

It smells awful in my house.

My poor kids are puking their guts out.

I feel so bad for them.

And the toy packing continues. Thankfully my hubby the nurse cleaned puke buckets tonight so I could go pack toys.

Good news: we finished all the boxes that will be given out Friday.

Even better news: this stomach bug seems to only go about twenty four hours. For some of them, even less.

And hey, better this week than next!

John Paul Back on Track

We had a rough night last night with John Paul. Dave ended up taking him to the emergency room because of dehydration. I dozed on and off while they were gone, and they didn't get home until well after three in the morning. Needless to say, we were walking around like sleepless zombies today.

It's lights out early tonight. John is doing much better.

Still debatable about mom and dad! Night all.

Another One Sick

So Teresa lost the fever and no throwing up today. Late this afternoon, John Paul started throwing up. He seems even sicker than she was. The boy is pale white and just throwing up. Please pray for our Johnny. He is usually our funny boy, always making us laugh. It is pitiful, tonight all he can do is lie on the couch looking and feeling just awful.

My heart always breaks when my kids are sick.

Please keep John Paul in your prayers tonight.

So Sorry

I am so sorry to all of you who read me on a regular basis. I told you that these next couple of weeks would be crazy. They just got crazier. My four year old woke up in the middle of the night last night after throwing up on herself. And diarrhea. Yes. Not good.

So I bathed her, put on fresh jammies, and sat with her. Most of the day I had her on my lap, in between Mass and my second oldest daughter's Christmas concert. Oh, and I threw in some laundry.

I am going to head for bed and hope to God's green earth that I get to stay there all night. But I don't know. Seems poor baby has the stomach bug, fever, throwing up, the works. So we shall see.

Say an extra prayer for my Teresa tonight. She is my sunshine.

I Am So Tired.........

I played Santa Claus's elf today. I worked with many teens from my area who came to the mission to pack toys for many, many children. We will help over five hundred families with toys this Christmas. Then I came home and made fifteen pounds of potato pancakes for our annual family Christmas crafters night. My eyes can barely stay open. I will write about Christmas crafters night tomorrow. I just can't do it tonight.

Jesus' little helper is exhausted.

Share My Music Friday

Listening to this makes me rejoice in the fact that the Lord is coming, in our hearts and in our lives.

YES!!!!!

I got my snow day because of the high winds! I will take it!!! Cookie baking, house decorating, very funny day with my kids, here I come!!!!!

Snow Day, Snow Day, I Want A Snow Day!

The wind outside sounds like a blizzard. But there is no snow with it. They are predicting a big amount, but so far, nothing. I want a snow day. I am worse than my kids when it comes to a snow day. Even though I won't sleep in, and I will get up anyway,it would be so nice to be grounded. I would love to be grounded.

If I have a snow day, I am going to bake cookies and decorate with my children. See, I even have my day planned already. I have all my baking supplies ready to go. My decorations are down from the attic. Please God, if You can hear me, I know you have more important things, like war and famine, but mine is pretty simple.

Just dump a lot of snow on Buffalo tonight and I can do the rest.

Thank You God. I know a four year old named Teresa who will have a shining face if you do so. Okay, and a forty-eight year old who will too.

So Busy Being An Elf

You will all have to excuse me if for the next two weeks my posts are short. Or rambling. Or crazy. Or tearful. I get emotional when I am tired.

I am very busy being Santa's little elf. We will be giving out enough toys to take care of about 500 or so families. Many, many children. This requires a lot of hard work and organization. We have an awesome, and I mean, really awesome lady, volunteer who coordinates the whole thing. She is so wonderful to work with!

Tonight we were moving toys around and setting things up. Well, starting to. It is a huge process. We fill orders, but before we do that, teens from all over come, and "shop" in our rooms that we set up by sex and age. Then when our teens come to help, they get a sheet on a family that has names and ages on it, and they fill a box with toys and goodies. Everything is donated. We don't except money from the government or our local diocese. It's all donations. People donate money and new toys to us, and we put them to good use. It is amazing when it all comes together!

Then I am blessed when the moms and dads come in, I get to call numbers out, and then they can pick things up. I love to greet them, wish them a Merry Christmas. I make them laugh, serve hot chocolate, coffee and donated donuts and pastries. My legs will be killing me these next two weeks. These forty-eight year old legs don't like to stand as much as we will be for the next two weeks, but boy will it be rewarding! I love every minute of it.

I work with the best ladies in the world. The holiest women you would ever meet! I am blessed.

I will try to write the rest of my love journey. Just bear with me folks. This week is crazy because I still have school too. Oh, and of course, keeping my fingers crossed and saying a prayer, we are supposed to have a snow storm by this weekend. It will get crazier still, cause no matter what, the show must go on!

Hang on and join me for the ride. Hopefully, I will be able to share some heart warming stories. There is always at least one.

Her Eyes Are Frozen....

Doesn't matter how many times I see it, I still laugh hysterically when the wife says, "She'll see it later honey, her eyes are frozen." Watch and enjoy.

But by God there'll be dancing......

There are some movies where I will sit through the whole thing just to get to the ending. I am weird that way. I love the endings to "The Wedding Singer", "Overboard", "Breakfast Club" to name just a few. And this one from "My Best Friend's Wedding".

Husbands and Cell Phones

I am not going to blog tonight on my advent walk, because my husband messed me up tonight by not having his cell phone on him.

I am not going into detail because it would bore you to tears, but all I can say is I do not understand why we give husbands cell phones anyway. I mean, seriously. I always love it when I am home and I need to get a hold of my husband and I call him and I hear his phone ringing from across the room. Is he across the room? NO. But his cell phone is!

Where is he? Oh, probably roaming Home Depot, looking at power tools and such. I know that is why he leaves it. I just know it. I know there are other wives out there who have gone through this. A friend told me tonight that she has had that happen to her too.

Sometimes my husband doesn't have his phone because he forgot to charge it. Can you imagine a woman forgetting to do that? No way. Or like tonight, turning the sound off because you are at a play, and hours later forgetting to turn it back on. What? Does not compute in my brain. Only an alien would do that! It would be like forgetting to breathe for me if I forgot to turn my cell phone back on.

I will forgive him. I will. Like an old friend used to say, "We've been married twenty years. Never once thought of divorce. Homicide, yes, but not divorce."

He's lucky three hots and a cot don't sound good enough to me.

Gotta go plug in his cell phone.

Love Is Not Irritable

This happens when I am tired. I become very, very irritable. It's not pretty. In fact my dearest husband was just looking over my shoulder as I wrote this and said, "Yeah, ain't that the truth". Don't laugh, it only encourages him.

But it also happens when we have an agenda, an idea of how something should be, or will be. And then others actually have the audacity to put in their own wants and desires and totally blow us out of the water. What is really hilarious, is when God has His own plan, and He wins over us. Then we get cranky. Ugly. Not real pleasant to be around.

This is really a fight between us and the devil. I always know it's him because I am usually tired, or hungry, or both when I am irritable. The devil wants to weaken me, so that my pride kicks in and says, (in a whiney voice) "This is not the way it should be, and I work hard, and I deserve better, and I am hungry, and tired. And I wish those kids would stop making so much noise. And where is their father anyway!!!!"

So then I am snippy to all around me. Cause things didn't work out the way I had planned. The operative word, "I", "Me". It's not about me. It's about God.

God first. Me last. His agenda. Not my own.

Again, it is that being able to let things slide. To be able to say, "Oh well, I didn't plan it this way, but this is what I have. Might as well smile"

Or go get some sleep and start again tomorrow. If I can keep my mouth closed, pray about it, sleep on it, and then make a decision, I am always the better for it.

One thing I have come to learn about myself, when I am tired, I am emotional. Not a good mixture! It's like lighting a match next to gas rags, some one's gonna get hurt, and it could very well be me!

Once again, PRIDE, PRIDE, and more PRIDE. I am finding out that pride is like the bulls eye in the center, and all other bad habits and sinful behavior are the outer rings. I just keep going around and then smack dab in the middle is the cause of my failings.

And that is one bulls eye you don't want to get one hundred points for. Put down the darts, and back away. Slowly.

But don't worry.....

I will be posting later about today's advent love thought. In case you are sitting at the edge of your seat waiting to see what I will say next. lol!

Share My Music Friday

The ultimate Christmas song. You know it's Christmas time when you hear this song!

Love is Thoughtful, Love is not Rude

For those of you following me on my advent journey, you missed yesterday's thought. Yesterday was love is thoughtful. Today was love is not rude.

All of this thinking about love, left me pondering today. During my Adoration I had a real epiphany. I was thinking about how people in general, but especially myself, need to just let things go sometimes. Why do I always feel like I have to be right? Why do I have to have the last word? If we sometimes just ignored things that bothered us, for the sake of loving the other person, wouldn't our world be more peaceful? If I stopped taking everything personal, and just loved, wouldn't that make the world a better place?

It's not saying that it's right for others to do wrong against us. But if we always gave others the benefit of the doubt, or even just admitted to ourselves that, "yeah, they shouldn't have done or said that" but I am just going to let it slide for once, wouldn't that make me a more loving person?

Maybe sometimes it is not thoughtful to point out to someone that they hurt our feelings. Maybe they really didn't mean to do it. Even if they did, would it kill me to not say anything and just let it go? And can you imagine how I could really blow some one's mind if they knew they had done something wrong, and I loved them anyway?

Maybe it is more rude of me to point out something someone did, than the actual thing the person did. Maybe it is more thoughtful to love and forgive immediately.

I think it is. I think that is what God wants us to do. As hard as that seems, I think if I am truly loving, and truly humble I can at least try to do this. If you really, really love someone, you will do anything for that person. And today, sitting in Adoration, I realized that means forgiving the stupid piddily things, as well as the big ones. As soon as I can. I don't expect that I will be able to do it right away, this will take some work, and a lot of God's graces, but it can be done.

I look at many of the saints, and I see that they did it easily and not so easily. That will be me. Sometimes it will be smooth like "buttah" and other times, like a roller coaster from hell. I am up for the challenge.

I am going to be pondering this some more. I think I am finally getting it. My spiritual director has been trying to teach me this for years. I am a slow learner, but then again, I know I had to go through what I did so I could really learn it in my head and my heart. Now it will stick, and I have graduated with a degree in love.

I am now working on my Master's degree.

The hubster's birthday!

It's the hubby's birthday and so I am catering to his every whim. Don't have time to write.


His name is Dave and he is forty-two today.

I love you baby.

Love is Not Selfish

To me, this one is what determines how well you are going to manage all the rest. I honestly think that everything stems from our selfishness. It's called our pride. Our ego.

Think about it. We are impatient because we can't understand why we can't have what we want right now! We are unkind because, hey, they should be nice to me first! It's all about me. We live in that kind of world. Sacrificing for others is seen as a bad thing. We need to take care of ourselves, get what we can out of life. And if it doesn't feel good anymore, well, just get rid of it, and get a new one.

I think we all have some of this in us. Then we either take to God's way or we take it our own way, and we become selfish, only thinking of ourselves. In this day and age, we have been taught that it is healthier to be that way. To make "me" first.

But God's ways are not our ways. He wants us to make others first and ourselves last. And that is hard. Again, it's that whole dying to our self thing.

It ain't easy. It's really hard for me sometimes not to be resentful and bitter. I always can see the selfish side of me, peeking up at me, making me feel sorry for myself. I can be such a sad sack. It's not fun.

Today was hard at times. To really put others first and do it with joy. Not easy. But I will tell you this, I feel a whole heck of a lot better about myself today. I really felt like I was doing what God wants me to do when I put myself last. Each moment of our lives is a choice. How will we act? How joyful can I be? Who comes first, me or them?

It's easier when your eyes are on Jesus. He looks at each one of us so lovingly. It's hard not to want to do everything He asks when He looks at you that way. With His love and grace, everything is easy.

Even when it's hard.