Good Days

Having a really nice time here in Kyle. The Cooke family is always and ever hospitable. I have the boy's room, and it is just perfect for Cora and I. She has settled in and when I have to go somewhere she has a nice place to wait.  

Friday Lucy got her letter jacket! It is so neat, and it was even chilly enough to need it! 

Friday evening the young lady who is running the youth programs at the church came, with her boyfriend, for dinner. It was great! We had Swedish pancakes, and they were so good. Then everyone played games for awhile after that. It was so much fun!

And there's Chester, of course.

We had a great day yesterday. I took Cora and Molly and Claire each took one of the other dogs, and we walked up to the school yard. Later in the afternoon Laura and I worked on the upstairs craft area and got it sorted and organized. We had a nice evening after that.

This morning we went to Mass early and came home and had a very nice day. It's been very quiet. The kids are playing with the Poole kids and Lucy is doing homework. We are going to have a quiet evening and wait for Dad to get here. 

Laura has been working on a headboard for the room that Dad will be in. It has a Swedish pattern that Mom had all over the house when I was a kid. I think he's going to love it!

Sometime this week I will be heading toward San Antonio to look at the area around Schertz, which is about a half hour from here. I want to look at the Church, and check out the neighborhoods. There are a couple of towns near there that I will look at as well. 

I am also on the hunt for some glasses for the wedding. Madi had a really great idea, and I am hoping that I can find what she is looking for! Laura and I have to do some scanning this week too. But today is Sunday, and I am just enjoying the gentle routine. 

On The Road Again!

 

On Sunday Tim and I headed out to Lexington, VA for a little getaway, and then I headed to Texas and he headed home. It was such a nice time! We stayed at a refurbished hotel that was very nice, and walked around town for awhile. It is a neat place!

The next morning I left early and had a long drive to North Little Rock, about 12 hours, with Cora. I am glad that I made a long leg that day, because yesterday I left there at 8am and only had an 8 hour drive to Texas. It was really a nice day, and it was so amazing to get out of the car and feel the warmth of the sun! 

It is really nice to be here and see everyone. I got going a bit late this morning because I was so tired! I didn't wake up until 6:45! Cora let me sleep all night, although she may have tried to wake me up and I just didn't notice. The kids were already out the door to school, except for Molly, who is home sick. Laura and I went to lunch with a friend of hers, and since it is Ash Wednesday it had to be a pretty small lunch. It was really good though. We are going to mass tonight, to get our ashes, and I may go tomorrow if there is mass at noon. 

It's a really nice day out there! Cora and I went for a walk, and looked around the neighborhood. I will try to be better about taking pictures. 

AI and Reality

 This morning I watched two videos. 

This one:

And this one:

I was taken by the contrasts, but also by the fact that I was able to see the second one, in part because of what is discussed in the first one. The first one is about how AI will affect the way people experience things in the future, and the second one is pure reality. Stone, wood, mountains and growing things. 

I want to think about this. How much will I be able to even participate in where we are going, as an aging person in the next 20 years?  And the way that I love silence, and stone and wood and growing things.

Happy Valentine's Day!

 It was a very nice Valentine's day today!

The weather was just amazing! Sunny and 63 degrees. Such a nice bonus in the middle of February. I took Cora for a nice long walk. I have given up on wearing her out though. I think that would take a lot longer than I have in the average day. 

Tim left me a nice gift before he left for work this morning. 

I am a big fan of the podcast "Small Town Dicks", which is a great little collection of stories about cops in small town America. So Tim get me a great mug from the merch on their website. 

It will be a great "serial" mug, for my Cheerios!

I went down to Fr Henry for a supervision session and he gave me some great insights, as always. I am so blest to have such a great supervisor as I go through my training. I can't believe how fast this year is going by! 

And now this day has gone by too and I have to take my sleepy puppy up to bed. 

Sunset at Remington Circle

 While Cora and I were out walking the other evening it was getting dark and when I came around the corner towards the house I saw this.

February, So Far

It's been a pretty busy February so far. 

I have been working to get all my requirements for school taken care of, because deadlines are looming and I will be heading for Texas. I will only have a couple of months left when I get back! That is really crazy!

I am meeting with several people each week and I love what the Lord is doing in their lives. I am just in awe of the power of prayer and the beauty of their faithful hearts. I am so glad that it is working out well to do direction online, because I can do it from anywhere. 

I am still looking at houses online in Texas. I have no idea when we will e able to actually move, but I do feel that God is in charge of that and I am content. I have plenty to do here and I know that I can serve at St Patrick's until we are able to move on. 

I am not sure what Dad's plans are. He is going to be in Texas at Laura's at the same time that I am, and I hope that we can look at areas that we might want to buy in. 

I have gotten out to walk a few times but it has mostly been too cold. I don't like to take Cora out when the temps are too bitter, because she really doesn't have much of a coat. She stays in and keeps warm. 

I did go over to Perryville Park without Cora to walk with Celeste, and we saw lots of ducks, geese and an
eagle, checking things out. It was a beautiful day.

Speaking of Cora.  Her mom Comet got hurt a couple of weeks ago. She was attacked by the neighbors dog and it tore her up pretty bad. She had to go in for emergency surgery. If it had been Luna or Cora, as small as they are, it might have been fatal. It was awful. Big dogs make me nervous around Cora because they can hurt her even in play. I just have to keep her close and make sure that she plays with dogs her own size if she is going to. 

Tim is working and I am trying to keep costs down while we are paying rent and it seems to be working out pretty well. We have to be mindful, but it's ok! There are just the two of us, and so the food bill is pretty low! We don't go out and even the gas bill has dropped. It's pretty tight in a lot of areas though, as it is for everyone! I can't believe how much everything has gone up! I was very happy to get my flight to Pittsburgh from New Orleans after the wedding on points. I was worried about that. It was great that it worked out. 

Hope to post again sooner than later.

Another Amazing Life

 The other morning I went to Mass, and Fr Francis was out again. I think he was away on retreat. 

We had several different priests that week, and that morning we were blest with Fr Abrams.

Fr Abrams was baptized at St Patrick's, and he has been serving across the bridge in Cecil County for years. 

I don't know that much about the details of his life, but I do know that he has come into mine over the course of the years at some very important times, and he somehow has played a role in my life that is unexpected. I probably won't ever know the extent of that, this side of Heaven, but I think that it is not small. 

When we first started out here in Havre de Grace, we would go to St Patrick's and Fr Abrams would occasionally say Mass. My friend Suzanne would jokingly call him Sir Lawrence Olivier because of his dramatic delivery of homilies. He does have an amazing voice, and it turns out that he has been an actor and is a huge fan of Shakespeare. He would always come to the plays that the kids would put on when we were homeschooling. 

When we had a rather difficult period in the parish, with a dramatic exit for one of our priests, Fr Abrams came to fill in for awhile, and we asked him if it was possible that he might be the new pastor. He said "Oh no, I was born here and you know what they say about a prophet in his hometown."

One of the moments that I remember that was very important to me was at a time when I felt that I had to separate from a group that I had been pretty deeply involved in. Many, well most, of my friends were in it as well, and it was really a pretty unhappy situation. I was thinking that I felt kind of adrift, and I wasn't sure what God wanted for me, in my spiritual journey. I had always had a strong devotion to the Sacred Heart, in fact I had entered that group on the weekend of the feast of the Sacred Heart. Then, as I became enmeshed in it, all the obligations and of that group kind of diluted that devotion. So when I came out of it, I went to confession. My confessor happened to be Fr Abrams, Did I say happened? No, God arranged that. And after my confession Fr said, in light of this difficult circumstance, "turn to the Sacred Heart and devote yourself to Him."  I was flooded with such joy. I knew that at that moment God was giving me a great gift of assurance that He was with me, and I would find the direction I was looking for. And He always keeps His promises. 

So when I saw Father Abrams the other day, and he said Mass, I was just so taken by the beautiful gift that his life has been to so many people. And I was prompted to take his picture. I seldom do that, but I really felt the Lord encouraging me. After Communion, in prayer, I felt the Lord saying that you just never know when the last time that you will see someone is, and it is so important to appreciate them and recognize the role that they have played. After Mass, I went back to the sacristy and I thanked him for being there for us, and I asked him to pray for a special intention. He assured me of his prayers and I just feel that he is heard in a special way. I pray that he has a very long life, and that our lives connect again over time, but if not, I want to say to him "Thank You, for giving God your amazing life."