Awesome Adoration!

Since moving away from Hays, I haven't had a "regular" adoration hour here in town. I really miss it, but with my schedule all over the place, it seems difficult to find a good time.

WELL, the Catholic high school in town started Adoration (prayer hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament/Eucharist/Jesus' Body for the non-Catholic readers in the bunch) on Fridays at the school. I signed right up!

The real perk to doing it at a school is the timing. You get summers, holidays and spring break OFF! Now, don't tisk me for being lazy .... summers tend to get insane, as do holidays, so it's nice to not have to contend with an extra item. Especially not feeling guilty about skipping or trying to find someone else to take it for me.

I know, I know .... when schedules get busy, God will provide and all of that. Evidently I don't have enough trust in my ability to trust fully that my head won't explode, so for the time being, this is a really good solution for me.

The one thing that is vastly different than my collegiate or Hays adoration hours is the time of day. Previously, I had middle of the night hours. 2 a.m. Sunday, 3 a.m. Thursday and maybe a Wednesday hour in college. I can't quite remember. The hours worked well for me because I KNEW I wouldn't be doing anything else at those times. Taking an hour in the daytime was a bit of a shock to my system. The stunning thing is that the hour seems to go by so much more quickly when I'm not thinking "Please God, let C come early so I can go home and go back to sleep." I've been fairly surprised.

The only "difficulty" if you could call it that is the students. Some of the teachers bring kids in for prayer time. It's school. It's expected. It's GOOD that their teachers bring them in.

On Friday, though, there were some girls making faces at each other behind their teacher's back. In the pew in front of me. I wanted to throttle them. Seriously. This is prayer time. Amazingly, I refrained. I decided since I was in the school to pray for the students, I should do just that, not be irritated at their extremely poor manners in front of the exposed Blessed Sacrament.

The amusing thing is I was telling Padre about it on Sunday before Mass, and he quipped, "No, don't smack them in Adoration, wait until you get in the hall before doing that."

I'm still giggling about his response.

French Onion Soup!

Confession: As a waitress in high school, I SERVED a lot of French Onion Soup, but until yesterday had never tasted it.

Growing up, there were not a lot of onions incorporated into the menu, which was fine. I was basically never exposed.

I was watching Melissa's show and thought "I can have most of the ingredients!"


Since it's been super-cold lately, I decided I'd give it a try. HERE is the recipe.

Actually, looking back at it. I forgot to add the bay leaf, lemon juice and thyme. Oh well, it was still supremely tasty!!! I actually used white onions (I didn't look at the recipe before heading to the store; I was running errands and wanted to just run in).

Honestly, the soup is SOOOO super sweet. And there is NO added sugar. Stunning!

We top it off with these cruton-like items. They're onion-poppy sticks. Made with whole wheat. Extra tasty!

Rain barrel update (again)

Ok, so the barrels. Gotta love 'em. Here's a video. The first clip is from before I figured out the overflow. There is a brief sunny dividing image, then it will show the ones with a completed overflow. I haven't 100% got the overflows complete. I have the east barrels done, but not the west. I'll be ready for Spring 2011!

Enjoy:

Basil = pesto

Basil on the left, peppers on the right.

BEFORE:


AFTER:



My pesto recipe:
A BUNCH of basil from my garden, washed and patted dry
A few cloves of garlic
Sprinkle of salt
1/2 to 1 cup of almonds, crushed (i put them in a plastic bag and swat them with the rolling pin to smash them)
olive oil

Take all of the ingredients, dump into your food processor. Note, a blender will work, but has to work much harder than a food processor. Blend until smooth. You will probably have to add olive oil as it blends.

An option is to add some parmesan cheese.

You can top pasta with this, and stir in chicken and it's yummy tasty! :)

When we're done with it, if we have extra, I like to put the extra in ice cube trays and freeze it. Then put it into a bag so I can use the ice tray. If I'm in a hurry, I can grab a cube or two or three and use it as an individual serving. Just warm in the microwave. :)

A quick video of why I looooove my food processor! :)

Thug

Oh yes, this is Erik's gangsta pose.

Esse seems thoroughly unimpressed.

Preparing for puppy

In order to get Esse prepared for Bailey's arrival, we got one of the pup's toys for her to sniff around.

We put turkey around the toy and she got a little used to it.

We then had to prepare the yard a bit. Bailey is pretty good about not running off. We just wanted to have a little something to visually discourage her from running around the side of the garage or house.








Of course, a little attitude. *sigh*

"Baby Paul's" graduation :)

I'll start with the photos from around the graduation itself. :)


Almost the entire clan was in Illinois for Paul's college graduation.


Theodore liked cheering for Uncle Paul. He didn't even mind the celebratory cow bells. But Daddy Chris was embarrassed by our cow bells. :)

Video of Paul walking across the stage. Prepare yourself for cow bells. :)


A little goofiness.


Before the graduation Paul wanted a few pix on campus.


Dad was in charge of the main stuff, so I was able to goof around. :)




This is Paul's "I'm freezing, hurry the heck up with your pictures, Dad" look.



Aaaaah, the final walk before graduating. :)







This photo above is probably my fave from the day. :)


Of course, I can't resist a little sun flare. Even with the point and shoot!


A head-on shot of it.


With my parents.


By the alumni center. I'm shocked they didn't make a pitch for money during any of the graduation speeches, now that they're alumni and all .... (but someone took mercy and grabbed some gloves for Paul).

Bucket list update/add-ons

It started out as my 101 in 1001 list.

Once I finished it, though, then what? I'm not sure I can come up with another 101 items. So I turned it into my bucket list.

Part of me felt I needed to complete the 101 items before I added anything to it. But I have things I want to add, so I'm making my own rules. :)

In order to keep things somewhat un-complex (yeah right!), I've decided to add items to the bucket list blog post. If you wish to see my add-ons, you may find them there. :)

Christmas 2010 with Theo

Robin and Chris and Theodore were in town in December, and I'm pleased to announce Baby Theo got his first Christmas present from us. :)

His jam-jams even match the wrapping paper.

This is a funny aside: Evidently every baby photo of Daddy Chris involved Chris' tongue sticking out. Theodore certainly follows in his daddy's footsteps.


Mommy and daddy helping out.


Theodore is pretty good at grabbing. They pulled the package and so Theo "opened" the gift. :)


Just look at that tongue on Theodore!!!!

What did Theodore get???? The Elf on the Shelf book set. :)


Not to be left out, Mommy Robin got a little something, too. I found these vintage pilot goggles at Restoration Hardware. They were super cute! :)


Robin, of course, got it and was all about using the scarf. :)


The tongue is STILL out!


With Uncle E.

New Year, new calendar!

Oh how excited I am about 2011!!!!!

There are lots of reasons, including: SK's wedding, Deacon Jeremy's ordination, our cutie nephew, lots of friends having babies, and a very booked 2011 spring for weddings.

But the BIGGEST reason is my new calendar. Yes, I'm a ginormous dork.

The 2010 is on the right and the new one is underneath:


While I think the "normal" sized calendars with photos are nice and all .... in 2010 I found there just wasn't enough room to put on all of my appointments on there.

I know there are dry erase boards and such, but we've booked through June, so I value having many months at once.

(YES, Juno, I scheduled this to be posted at 11:11 a.m. on 1/1/11) ;)