Monday, March 31, 2008
Gladly, the Cross-eyed Bear
Chelsea just reminded me about "Gladly, the Cross-eyed Bear". And I said she wasn't listening in church!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Giggles from the Back Pew
Martha, I like your idea for "Off Track Track Off", but I'll let you use it!
I went to Our Lady of Loretto this morning with my Mother. I haven't been in eons, and I didn't realize how completely I'd forgotten the whole drill! This was the first time to OLOL for both of us. Mom has been going to our old old Catholic church "All Souls" in Littleton, and I've been to St. Michaels, SHUM, Eastern Hills, and (mostly) not gone at all. So, I got a bug - and we met at the 7 am mass.
Mom:
"Ut-oh" . . . "oh dear" . . . "look out" . . . "here we go" . . . and more. I think Mom, who still likes it better in Latin, was not convinced by their attempt at being traditional. They broke out the incense, and the holy water spritzer, out with the mumbling chants and in with the singing, a Solid Gold Bible, Christ on the cross with spurting blood in glittery Austrian style -they had it all covered - EVERTHING! I don't know if they do this every time, or if, as mom said, "they haven't gotten over the fact Easters over yet."
So I blame my mother. I was quickly trasported back to going to St. Thomas Moore (the way I remember it, it was the 5.am. mass) with the Lindners, and Chelsea and I GIGGLING. And if my parents were strict and old school, hers were spartan stoics. Which made the giggling much, much worse. Then I heard the speaker say something about "Captain Heaven". I could actually see my daughter, standing next to me about to burst from trying not to twitch too loudy, unable to resist asking "who's Captain Heaven mom?" I think it might have been "kept it heaven", who knows, because my point is, I am a church giggler. And this doesn't even start to cover the times I went with the Goodwins.
Maybe I'll try SHUM again next week. They have sunday school.
OK, I'll be back tomorrow with my official
"ON TRACK ON TRACK OFF LIST"
inspired by Ms. Matha
1. set coffee talk time
I went to Our Lady of Loretto this morning with my Mother. I haven't been in eons, and I didn't realize how completely I'd forgotten the whole drill! This was the first time to OLOL for both of us. Mom has been going to our old old Catholic church "All Souls" in Littleton, and I've been to St. Michaels, SHUM, Eastern Hills, and (mostly) not gone at all. So, I got a bug - and we met at the 7 am mass.
Mom:
"Ut-oh" . . . "oh dear" . . . "look out" . . . "here we go" . . . and more. I think Mom, who still likes it better in Latin, was not convinced by their attempt at being traditional. They broke out the incense, and the holy water spritzer, out with the mumbling chants and in with the singing, a Solid Gold Bible, Christ on the cross with spurting blood in glittery Austrian style -they had it all covered - EVERTHING! I don't know if they do this every time, or if, as mom said, "they haven't gotten over the fact Easters over yet."
So I blame my mother. I was quickly trasported back to going to St. Thomas Moore (the way I remember it, it was the 5.am. mass) with the Lindners, and Chelsea and I GIGGLING. And if my parents were strict and old school, hers were spartan stoics. Which made the giggling much, much worse. Then I heard the speaker say something about "Captain Heaven". I could actually see my daughter, standing next to me about to burst from trying not to twitch too loudy, unable to resist asking "who's Captain Heaven mom?" I think it might have been "kept it heaven", who knows, because my point is, I am a church giggler. And this doesn't even start to cover the times I went with the Goodwins.
Maybe I'll try SHUM again next week. They have sunday school.
OK, I'll be back tomorrow with my official
"ON TRACK ON TRACK OFF LIST"
inspired by Ms. Matha
1. set coffee talk time
Saturday, March 29, 2008
So, what's everyone been up to the last 9 weeks?
BUSY DAY ONE! 2 soccer games, visitors in town, and an 80th Birthday party - at a house with Karaoke - "we all live in a yellow submarine" - 
The caption for this first picture is "never mind, I don't have to go" - (Abi's alot of fun on camping trips).
Wow! I'm glad to be on break! I just let the girls stay up until 9:30 listening to a book with BAD WORDS in it - to celebrate track off. Maybe I should go wake them up and see if they'd like to join me for a coke and cookies! I asked my Prof if I could turn this weeks assignment in late so I can hang out with an visiting friend, and he said sure! and and . . . . I'm going to look at everyone's blogs REAL
soon!
Pic. #2 - This is my family with Jeff, Chelsea and 80 year old Sombrero wearing Gene Lindner. We've known the Lindners since 1975, when Chelsea moved in across the street from us and my mother made me go ask her to play. (Something I'm sure she regretted many times in my teenage years.)
Good Night! I love you all!
"We All Live In a Yellow Submarine"
The caption for this first picture is "never mind, I don't have to go" - (Abi's alot of fun on camping trips).
Wow! I'm glad to be on break! I just let the girls stay up until 9:30 listening to a book with BAD WORDS in it - to celebrate track off. Maybe I should go wake them up and see if they'd like to join me for a coke and cookies! I asked my Prof if I could turn this weeks assignment in late so I can hang out with an visiting friend, and he said sure! and and . . . . I'm going to look at everyone's blogs REAL
soon!Pic. #2 - This is my family with Jeff, Chelsea and 80 year old Sombrero wearing Gene Lindner. We've known the Lindners since 1975, when Chelsea moved in across the street from us and my mother made me go ask her to play. (Something I'm sure she regretted many times in my teenage years.)
Good Night! I love you all!
"We All Live In a Yellow Submarine"
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
HAPPY EASTER
He's supposed to walk. Is he walking?He's not walking.
Well, I suppose it's not really about the walking pink bunny graphic or the chocolate either.
Happy Easter!
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Abi's First Love Letter
I just found a letter in Abigail's backpack. She's in Kindergarten, and I almost cried - it's the sweetest little note to Abi from "Roo". Apparently one of Abi's new buddies Ruthee, is moving. She writes:
Dear Abi,
I hope you had a very fun sant patriks day. I love you so much. I have to moov in 2 weks. I will mic you and all the theing that we have dun. I will mic you 2 much that I will cria and cria. I love you, and wish I cood stai. Love Ruthee
Then there is a picture drawn of "Roo" and "Abi" and 2 dogs and 2 cats with sad faces and many many tears falling.
Does Abi need a penpal?
Dear Abi,
I hope you had a very fun sant patriks day. I love you so much. I have to moov in 2 weks. I will mic you and all the theing that we have dun. I will mic you 2 much that I will cria and cria. I love you, and wish I cood stai. Love Ruthee
Then there is a picture drawn of "Roo" and "Abi" and 2 dogs and 2 cats with sad faces and many many tears falling.
Does Abi need a penpal?
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
"Thinking Weaselish thoughts at Eastertide"
I love Garrison Keillor, which makes me feel old (most people who have even heard of him are much older than me). I get nostalgic about my grandparents and there protestant, mid-westie ways. Anyway, I'm about to embark on a Catholic reunion with my mother. Planned for a test run the week after Easter. Funny that I would see this, from him, in 2008
Thinking weaselish thoughts at Eastertide Holy Week is a good time to ask: Do we really believe or do we just like to hang out with nice people and listen to organ music?
By Garrison Keillor
Mar. 19, 2008 There was a small epiphany in church last week when we sang the recessional "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded," a German chorale in which we basses must jump around more limberly than we may be used to. A tough part compared to "When the Roll Is Called up Yonder" and I stood in the rear and struggled with it and then as the choir recessed down the main aisle and came up and stood in the side aisles, three basses wound up standing near me, like border collies alongside the lost sheep, and I got myself in their draft and we sang our way to the barn. (Moral: Get with the group -- just make sure it's the right one.)
I came to church as a pagan this year, though wearing a Christian suit and white shirt, and sat in a rear pew with my sandy-haired gap-toothed daughter whom I would like to see grow up in the love of the Lord, and there I was, a skeptic in the henhouse, thinking weaselish thoughts.
This often happens around Easter. God, in His humorous way, sometimes schedules high holy days for a time when your faith is at low tide, a mud flat strewn with newspapers and children's beach toys, and while everyone else is all joyful and shiny among the lilies and praising up a storm, there you are, snarfling and grumbling. Which happened to me this year. God knows all about it so I may as well tell you.
Holy Week is a good time to face up to the question: Do we really believe in that story or do we just like to hang out with nice people and listen to organ music? There are advantages, after all, to being in the neighborhood of people who love their neighbors. If your car won't start on a cold morning, you've got friends.
A year or so ago, I sat down and read the four Gospels in one fell swoop and somehow the jaggedness of some of it shook my faith, which maybe was based more on visuals -- Jesus tending His flock, and little children gathered at His knee, sunbeams bursting through storm clouds, and so forth -- and then I read about how the early Church cobbled the Scriptures together, which has to raise doubts in anyone's mind. The Jews got stone tablets and the Mormons arranged for an angel to bring them their holy text, but ours was hammered out through a long contentious political process, sort of like the tax code, and that's something you don't care to know more about.
I don't doubt God's existence -- there He is -- but I doubt His interest in us right now and I haven't the faintest idea what He wants from me.
So I sat and felt miserable. And then we had to chant the Psalm, which went, "I am in trouble, my life is wasted with grief and my years with sighing." Oh boy. David really gets into the blues, he is the Howlin' Wolf of the Chosen, and when he sings, "I have become a reproach even to my neighbors, a dismay to those of my acquaintance, when they see me in the street they avoid me," I know that feeling. The leper. The unbeliever. And that's how I felt when my fellow basses came up alongside and we put our backs to it and sang.
There is comfort for the doubter in the Passion story. You are not alone. Jesus' cry from the cross was a cry of incredulity. The apostle denied even knowing Jesus three times. The guy spent years with Jesus, saw the miracles up close, the raising of Lazarus, the demons cast out, the sick healed, the water-walking trick, all of the special effects, but when the cards were down, he said, "Who? Me? No way."
He repented. I would too, but not quite yet.
Skepticism is a stimulant, not to be repressed. It is an antidote to smugness and the great glow of satisfaction one gains from being right. You know the self-righteous -- I've been one myself -- the little extra topspin they put on the truth, their ostentatious modesty, the pleasure they take in being beautifully modulated and cool and correct when others are falling apart. Jesus was rougher on those people than He was on the adulterers and prostitutes.
So I will sit in the doubter's chair for a while and see what is to be learned back there.
(Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country.)
Thinking weaselish thoughts at Eastertide Holy Week is a good time to ask: Do we really believe or do we just like to hang out with nice people and listen to organ music?
By Garrison Keillor
Mar. 19, 2008 There was a small epiphany in church last week when we sang the recessional "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded," a German chorale in which we basses must jump around more limberly than we may be used to. A tough part compared to "When the Roll Is Called up Yonder" and I stood in the rear and struggled with it and then as the choir recessed down the main aisle and came up and stood in the side aisles, three basses wound up standing near me, like border collies alongside the lost sheep, and I got myself in their draft and we sang our way to the barn. (Moral: Get with the group -- just make sure it's the right one.)
I came to church as a pagan this year, though wearing a Christian suit and white shirt, and sat in a rear pew with my sandy-haired gap-toothed daughter whom I would like to see grow up in the love of the Lord, and there I was, a skeptic in the henhouse, thinking weaselish thoughts.
This often happens around Easter. God, in His humorous way, sometimes schedules high holy days for a time when your faith is at low tide, a mud flat strewn with newspapers and children's beach toys, and while everyone else is all joyful and shiny among the lilies and praising up a storm, there you are, snarfling and grumbling. Which happened to me this year. God knows all about it so I may as well tell you.
Holy Week is a good time to face up to the question: Do we really believe in that story or do we just like to hang out with nice people and listen to organ music? There are advantages, after all, to being in the neighborhood of people who love their neighbors. If your car won't start on a cold morning, you've got friends.
A year or so ago, I sat down and read the four Gospels in one fell swoop and somehow the jaggedness of some of it shook my faith, which maybe was based more on visuals -- Jesus tending His flock, and little children gathered at His knee, sunbeams bursting through storm clouds, and so forth -- and then I read about how the early Church cobbled the Scriptures together, which has to raise doubts in anyone's mind. The Jews got stone tablets and the Mormons arranged for an angel to bring them their holy text, but ours was hammered out through a long contentious political process, sort of like the tax code, and that's something you don't care to know more about.
I don't doubt God's existence -- there He is -- but I doubt His interest in us right now and I haven't the faintest idea what He wants from me.
So I sat and felt miserable. And then we had to chant the Psalm, which went, "I am in trouble, my life is wasted with grief and my years with sighing." Oh boy. David really gets into the blues, he is the Howlin' Wolf of the Chosen, and when he sings, "I have become a reproach even to my neighbors, a dismay to those of my acquaintance, when they see me in the street they avoid me," I know that feeling. The leper. The unbeliever. And that's how I felt when my fellow basses came up alongside and we put our backs to it and sang.
There is comfort for the doubter in the Passion story. You are not alone. Jesus' cry from the cross was a cry of incredulity. The apostle denied even knowing Jesus three times. The guy spent years with Jesus, saw the miracles up close, the raising of Lazarus, the demons cast out, the sick healed, the water-walking trick, all of the special effects, but when the cards were down, he said, "Who? Me? No way."
He repented. I would too, but not quite yet.
Skepticism is a stimulant, not to be repressed. It is an antidote to smugness and the great glow of satisfaction one gains from being right. You know the self-righteous -- I've been one myself -- the little extra topspin they put on the truth, their ostentatious modesty, the pleasure they take in being beautifully modulated and cool and correct when others are falling apart. Jesus was rougher on those people than He was on the adulterers and prostitutes.
So I will sit in the doubter's chair for a while and see what is to be learned back there.
(Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country.)
Monday, March 17, 2008
MOTHER DUCK!!!
tee hee hee - that's what I heard C yelling tonight.
I went in to check out the sitch, and found them playing with the whole
mother ducking, rubber duck clan
in the bath tub.
I just thought I'd take a little study break and share that.
9 more days! Can I make it?
Sewing class, visit with Chelsea, sleep, movies, tv programs, sleep. Visit Doug and Annie, take Yurt measurements, Bon bons, scrapbooking, heck I'll even look forward to cleaning! if you could just help me get through the next 9 days.
I went in to check out the sitch, and found them playing with the whole
mother ducking, rubber duck clan
in the bath tub.
I just thought I'd take a little study break and share that.
9 more days! Can I make it?
Sewing class, visit with Chelsea, sleep, movies, tv programs, sleep. Visit Doug and Annie, take Yurt measurements, Bon bons, scrapbooking, heck I'll even look forward to cleaning! if you could just help me get through the next 9 days.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
snow ... snow ... snow .... snow . . .SNOW ... SNOW
SNOW . . . SNOW. . .
SNOW . . . SNOW
Come on everyone! Chant with me! Momma needs a Monday snowday! 10 inches for 10 more days, oh the poetic beauty would be enough to make me weep tears of joy.
Sorry if I'm ignoring you, my fellow bloggers! I haven't had time to do my own much less keep up with everyone else's. I swear I'll catch up if I could just have a SNOW DAY!! Why live in Colorado if you can't have a few a year?
OK, back to my paper.
SNOW . . . SNOW
Come on everyone! Chant with me! Momma needs a Monday snowday! 10 inches for 10 more days, oh the poetic beauty would be enough to make me weep tears of joy.
Sorry if I'm ignoring you, my fellow bloggers! I haven't had time to do my own much less keep up with everyone else's. I swear I'll catch up if I could just have a SNOW DAY!! Why live in Colorado if you can't have a few a year?
OK, back to my paper.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
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