Here are my quick takes, short and quick and up early. They will be expanded upon, hopefully later today.
1- This week I had a bit of routine revival but it’s proving so difficult to stick to it. There are a number of challenges but I think one of the biggest is getting time away from the kids each morning to do my quick prayer time. I think through things in order, so if that’s not done, noting else is getting done either. I think I need to accept imperfection. If I don’t get to pray first thing my whole day tends to be off so it’s probably better if I have my quick praise/bible time WITH the kids early, than putting it off to be with the kids and then repeatedly forgetting about it when I actually have a few free minutes. Some other things that could help me to do better would be getting up more promptly, trying to make myself stick to the routine when the kids are sick even if they don’t and setting a timer especially for computer tasks.
I did finally add exercise to my routine on Monday, as we now have some neat dance game demos that get me moving, but it lasted all of one day because I got sick and run down again. I did manage a half-effort to exercise this morning though, but I was still feeling tired.
I’d been thinking more about having more energy and how exercise as part of my routine was still a bit of a pie in the sky dream, and I discussed my desire to start exercising with a lady who used to be a personal trainer and she said that to get rid of my tummy would require both strength training AND cardio (so sit ups just don’t cut it, which is good because I have zero interest in doing them.) For me, exercise has to be fun or I’m not going to do it. I have no interest in going to the gym etc, but I would happily play a game or dance, or both. But given my schedule it pretty much has to be something I can do from home (because there is not really time to go for a walk in the morning before DH leaves for work, so a game I can play in my living room would be perfect. She said that given my dislike for normal exercise a dance game would be good for me. The dance games look like fun but most of them have the popular club music that I really don’t care for, so I was really pleased to see the Grease Dance game. The music is much more my style and the demo dance was pretty fun, and it definitely got me moving.
I also loved the winter sports games that were on the wii fit, and I found they actually worked my core as well because there was a lot of balance involved. I went hunting for something similar for the kinect, and found this:
Of course it would be discontinued, but the local game store is ordering in the copy from Truro 🙂
With these 2 games combined I should be all set to get in better shape 🙂 I haven’t ordered the Grease one yet but having seen the other dances on youtube I think I will in another week or two, but it costs a bit more than the sports one.
2- When it comes to living in an unequally yoked marriage, I’ve now got a wealth of resources! 2 weeks ago when I sent the email to Focus I had none, and now I have 7 books on my wishlist, several articles, 2 radio broadcasts (and more should I choose to order them), a forum Q and A session with the guests from the broadcast, a spiritually unequal marriage blog with a whole community of followers devoted to this very subject and even a forum of unequally yoked people, mostly women. All of a sudden there is more wisdom than I can actively absorb and apply right away!
The first thing I found was an excellent article, Mismatched Marriage . This paragrpah really spoke to me because it explains so well how it feels:
To Leslie, Christianity wasn’t a crutch, it was a source of wisdom, comfort and joy unlike anything she’d every experienced. And she couldn’t share these experiences with the man she loved the most! Every time she tried to help me understand, I would ridicule her or ignore her pleas. Leslie later said this experience was like visiting some beautiful and romantic city, drinking in its wonderful sights and sounds, but knowing I was neither interested in going with her nor hearing about it when she got back.
I wrote an extended post on this topic, Life with an Unequal Yoke, in which I included some more of the wisdom I’ve been reading as well as some wonderful prayers, but this one really stuck out for me because it’s so short yet it’s complete and powerful:
Lord, let ________ love me like Christ loves the church and Father, help me to love him/her as Christ loves the church.
I also decided for my morning prayer to offer my day etc ‘for the following intentions’, and then make a real prayer about each person/group instead of just listing their names.
3- On Wednesday night I went to a second Lenten Mission. CCO was putting on the mission at our church down the road. There was also a mission at the church where we used to go to playgroup that my mom was going to, and it was the last night for both of them. She had mentioned it tentatively on Sunday because her spiritual director thought she would like to attend, and I expressed interest if she chose to go back another night. But when she surprised me by calling to ask if I would like to go with her that night I could tell instantly from her enthusiasm that it was very good. So, despite the big difference in driving time and my attachment to all things CCO, I drove out to the mission with my mom instead.
It WAS good, really good! I wrote 8 pages of my notebook in 45 minutes good. Here’s some of what stood out for me:
-All our journeying towards heaven is meant to bring us to the realization that we can’t get to Jerusalem, not by way of Herring cove or any oter way, unless God Himself picks us up.
– There’s something inside each human being that is deeply wounded.
-When we were baptised, God came to us. He entered our being. He changed us.
-Into the water goes a baby, out of the water comes an icon of Christ. -still looks like a baby… still ACTS like a baby!
-Because we’re baptised, we can NEVER say, in the face of what God is asking of us, ‘I can’t do it. I’m only human.’ No. You’re human, sure, but you’re not ONLY human. You’re a human being full of God’s grace! You can’t, but God can! When everything in my says I can’t trust God with this, I can’t love him/her, I can’t forgive him! – you don’t have to, Jesus in you, will.
-Faith is a way of knowing. Everybody has faith. The most hardened athesits has faith. They’ll die before they’ll admit it, but they do. Faith is simpl knowig something, based on the words/testimony of somebody else. -Someone tells you’ I love you, ‘, can you prove it? No! You can’t see into another person’s heart. Hey, you can barely see into your own heart! Still, you conclude that they’re not lying. That’s faith. We can’t ride in an airplane w/o faith-in the pilot. -If we acted only on the things we KNOW, we’d hardly be able to get out of bed in the morning!
-Faith-that what God/Jesus has revealed is TRUE.
-Faith in the mind gives birth to hope and love-we live the truth of God.
-Love is the perfection of hope. God isn’t just going to make me happy; God IS my happiness!!!!
We’e given faith, hope and love at Baptism, but we need to exercise them. And, just like our muscles, they are strengthened by resistance, aka by lifting something that doesn’t want to get lifted.
We’re going along and then all of a sudden the lights go out. ‘I thought I had faith!, what’s wrong?’ This is right. We need this to grow. We have our knowledge and our trust etc, but all of that stuff can get knocked out of us. When the things we thought would happen, don’t happen. Then still, we say ‘Lord, I believe.’ This time of darkness and doubt, THIS will make your faith stronger!
When we are so burdened, so full of sorrow, so dependent, that God is our only hope, it is THEN that our hope grows strong.
Witness to hope-book about a priest who was imprisoned for years, only celebrate mass with a tiny crumb of bread and few drops of wine. His chalice was the palm of his hand.
When we run out of gas, when we’re too tired we just say, ‘more love please!’. We can do so much more than we ever thought possible. Think of the martyrs. Did you know there were actually more martyrs in the 20th century, than all the previous 19 centuries combined? The martyrs poured out their love for God to the very last drop of blood!
In the Eucharist, God gives us everything He is. What a gift! He changes bread and wine into His body an blood. Our body becomes His body. Our blood becomes His blood. Our love becomes His love!
When we take everything that He has given us, and give it in charity and love to every person we meet, THAT is Jerusalem.
4- This is so powerful:
If you haven’t seen the spoken word videos circling the internet they are basically poems with a definite flow and a powerful message. This one is on abortion, surprise surprise, but more focused on how the industry is specifically targeting blacks and other minorities. A very good listen.
5- My oldest is showing a real interest in reading. For a few days he had been reading out the letters on the side of the VHS case: L. I. O. N. K. I. N. G.
Then on Friday, he was looking at the colors glitter book and pointing to one of the words I think… He was asking about the word brown, so we went through the book reading letters and words with help. Then we tackled the simple ‘Clifford barks’ book. I thought he would have become bored with the exercise long ago, but he loved it 😀
6- My 2 year old was being lazy with the pull ups and thereby costing us uneccessary extra money by going through them faster the necessary, so I decided to put a a stop to it-and put him back in underpants during the day. That was over a week ago and except once when it was somewhat my fault, he hasn’t had ANY accidents!!!! 😀
And to round out the achievements, the baby rolled over this week! – He’s been getting closer and closer to the edge of the couch – time to put him on the floor instead.
7- I discovered Crave’s Photoshop Friday where she posts the raw image from the camera and then her edited version. Then to see where I was lacking, I attempted to edit her raw image with my editing tools to see how close I could get it and after a few minutes my edit of her image looked much like many of my photos now. So her raw images are about the same quality as my good ones, though maybe a little crisper because her models sit still and she’s had a lot more practice! It seems the quality really lies in the editing. This is good because my actual photographs are a lot closer to professional grade than I thought. This is bad because my editing is not! However, that too would improve with time and Photoshop (I don’t have it, it costs a lot). I guess besides a little more practice with the aperture I will have improved about as far as I can, without upgrading my editing.
Here is her original raw photo:
And here is her edit on the left, and mine on the right. I didn’t like it quite so washed out but her edit has much sharper eyes than I could attain in picasa, as well as more depth.
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