Hello friends! I was so thrilled to see the great response to my birthday gift drive for Steubenville’s poor and homeless that I decided to do it again. This is an Advent donation drive, just in time for Giving Tuesday, and I hope we can get it done by Saint Nicholas Day on the sixth because Saint Nicholas is my favorite saint. I’ve set up a Christmas gift registry of snacks, treats, warm supplies and toiletries for the homeless.... Read more
Christians are supposed to rejoice in our weaknesses. I don’t really know how to do that. But I do talk about weakness a lot– partly for good reason, so that we can all remember that weakness is nothing to be ashamed of . And partly because it’s just on my mind so often, because I’m weak. Lately I’ve been downright fragile. The anxiety is to blame. It just gets worse. I’m grateful to finally have a doctor who knows what’s... Read more
Yesterday was the anniversary of Rose’s baptism. I can’t even find a photo to show you of Rose’s baptism. This year I broke down and told Rose’s nightmare birth story in excruciating detail, and was abused for it because that’s what happens when women tell their stories of being raped and abused. Now I’ll tell the baptism story. Rose’s baptism was a slapdash affair. We were still going to the grim Baroque church downtown, the one with the... Read more
Truth be told, the anxiety is still bad. I’ve struggled with anxiety my entire life. It’s been misdiagnosed as a symptom of a hundred other things. Now I understand it’s a symptom of PCOS. We’re still working out getting it under control. Last week there was plenty to make me anxious. This week there really isn’t much. We were flat broke with nothing to pay the shutoff amount on the water or the rent and the car was nearly out... Read more
I was going to write one of my haunting blog posts today. But first, Rosie and I had to drive all the way out to Three Springs Drive for a shopping expedition. Of course, before we went on a shopping expedition we had to go on an expedition to the thrift store to get all of Rose’s outgrown clothes and toys out of the trunk or we wouldn’t be able to shop. To do that, we had to drive... Read more
Today, no doubt, your ears are still ringing with a certain “not guilty” verdict. You surely have an opinion on this “not guilty” verdict. I have lots of them. But instead of addressing this particular case and this particular verdict, I just want to talk about some other notable people who have been found “not guilty,” or not found guilty because they were never brought to trial in the first place, for murder at all in the United States of... Read more
Yesterday, I went downtown with a bag of all the extra groceries from my visit to the food pantry. There is only one person in the house who doesn’t get a horrible stomach ache from wheat, so there’s no way we were going to go through all of those crackers and muffins. I gave away the excess to the Friendship Room’s free pantry– a little sheepishly. It felt silly to give cast off food from a donated food box to... Read more
You’ve surely heard by now of the humiliating downfall of the leader of Regina Caeli Academy and the planned “Veritatis Splendor” intentional community, which anyone could have predicted. You can read all about the project here. It was a terrible idea from the beginning. I’m sorry for everyone who was hurt in this situation. Intentional communities always sound so nice in the abstract. The notion that you can get away from the bad old world and just hunker down... Read more
I hardly know where to begin. I wish I had a different Mary Pezzulo to show you. I’ve wished that more times than I can count. I don’t like being Mary Pezzulo. I would like to be somebody else. I have a gorgeous Mary Sue fanfic Tolkein elf I like to make up stories about, and sometimes I pretend I’m a child who got lost in Narnia without Aslan noticing, and I sometimes pretend to be a member of... Read more
On Friday, Rosie got her first COVID-19 inoculation. We drove down to the health department the long way, past a bright orange riot of late fall trees. I was babbling, as grown-ups do, promising Rosie it would be over quickly. “Just a quick shot, then we’ll go get French fries. And you can tell your grandchildren you survived the pandemic.” We went into the health department, up to the sixth floor. I filled out the form with trepidation, even though I... Read more
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