Congratulations to ibleedorange at Gullible’s Travels!  You win an $80 shopping spree to CSN stores. Send me your email address so they can send you the electronic gift card. Please, please, please just come back and tell us what you bought.  (You don’t have to, but I’m very nosy.) Read more

I spent the day today with my Mother in Law, my two daughters and the baby.  It was a lovely way to spend the day. Several times today, I thought back to the times right after we were married.  Times when my in-laws and I circled and danced around each other trying to figure out the rules in this newly formed extended family.  It wasn’t that we didn’t like each other, I was just an unlikely addition to the family... Read more

Last night, I watched a movie with my husband,  which of course means that he put something on the TV that we both watched over the top of our laptops.  Side by side, him working and me chatting on Facebook.  It’s the new romance. I IM’d for a while with an old boyfriend from college.  He thinks of me as the one that got away and I think of him as the bullet dodged.  He’s a nice guy, but it... Read more

I love to cook, so imagine my surprise when I realized that after 2 1/2 years of blogging, I’ve only shared 4 recipes.  That’s just wrong.  I’m going to try and do a bit better. There are just some days when all I want is to curl up on the couch with a big cup of chili and watch movies until late into the night.  Days like today. In my world, chili is the ultimate comfort food.  I’m making the... Read more

**Last week I wrote about a miracle.  It wasn’t a tale I could tell then, now it is.** I got a phone call last week from my dear friend, the woman in the white minivan. She was laughing. “My husband’s great aunt called me this morning,” she said.  ” She told me, ‘I’ve done something naughty.  I know you said that you had accepted that you would have no more babies, but I just this morning finished a novena to... Read more

I went to the park this morning with 5 happy children (#2 was serving a funeral Mass) and left with a three year old screaming as loudly as three year old lungs can scream.  He had sand thrown in his face by a mean big kid and sandy eyeballs hurt. I washed his face and eyes as best as I could in the park restroom, and then we drove the whole way home to the plaintive cries of “Mine eyes! ... Read more

I’m changing things around a bit on the old blog here.  I’ve added pages up at the top and will be moving my blogroll up there over the weekend. I’ve also added an advertiser to the sidebar.  I’d like to welcome Catholic Free Shipping.  They’re an on-line seller of all things Catholic, and as the name states, the shipping is free.  Need a Bible, medal or rosary?  Click through on their as and give them a try will you? I’m... Read more

I like to be in charge.  I plan our meals and vacations.  I pick out new furniture, new wall colors, and decide where things should go.  I pay the bills, teach the children, and make hundreds of small decisions every day without even thinking of asking for help.  I’m a girl child of the 1970’s and am a product of my upbringing. My father was a Naval officer; my mom was his loving bride.  He went to sea; she ran... Read more

There are, in this world, big miracles of which everyone has heard, and small miracles known to only a select few.  There are those whose stories are shouted from the rooftops, and those which are known only by a private smile. Today I heard of something so wonderful that I want to climb a mountain and scream it as loud as I can yell it, but the story is not mine, so I go to my blog and quietly whisper... Read more

I won the Cannonball Catholic Award, and potential advertisers are emailing me!!!!!!!!!!  How cool is that?  I promise to not go all commercial and lose that aw-shucks small town charm you know and love. Yesterday, I got an email from a representative of CSN Stores online (the sell everything from diaper bags to  a sleeper sofa) wanting me to host a web give-away of an $80 gift certificate! I’ll admit that I worried it was a put-on and that nothing... Read more