Eye Opener

So, as I wrote about in my last post, we went to St. Augustine this weekend for Nick to present his paper.   (I am going to write all about it in my other blog: http://aboveallcatholic.blogspot.com/ .  I will try to keep this posting pertinent to the subject.)  After a friend recommended a great hostel there, we decided to make it an overnighter.  It is hard to find one room to fit all six of us if we are being completely honest while making reservations. 

***  As a side note, I am a pretty staunch believer in rules.  I haven't always been this way, and I don't always make the best choices, but I am trying.  Anyway, for me, if there is a rule, and I blatantly break it to make it more convenient for me, I am not sending the correct message to my kids.  Even if a rule is stupid in my opinion and I disagree with it, I still try to follow it, because I am pretty sure my kids think that some of my rules are stupid and they don't agree with them, but I expect them to follow them, so I must set the same example.  This has cost me in the past, and I am sure it will in the future, but I always try to be aware of what my kids are seeing, and let's face it, kids watch everything, and especially now that all of my kids are capable readers, there is no pulling one over on them.  If they read a sign that says "maximum occupancy 4" on a hotel room, and we have 6 of us in there, they are going to ask why we are doing the wrong thing.  This is just my personal opinion and my personal choice.  I am in no way judging you if you book a hotel room for a family larger than the room occupancy.  We've done it before too.  To me, it comes down to lying.  If I feel the need to go to confession after I've made a choice, then it probably wasn't the best choice to make.  ***

Anyway, my friend recommended the Pirate Haus Inn. It is a hostel that has family rooms also that have a queen bed and two sets of bunk beds.  I will tell more about it in my other blog, but it is really fun.  It is completely pirate themed, complete with a captain in pirate garb, and a free all you can eat pirate pancake breakfast. 

So, we all went and stayed overnight.  We arrived, checked in and went to dinner.  We had quite a wait to eat, since it was difficult to find a place within walking distance of our hostel that was family friendly.  We passed tons of pubs and lounges and bar and grill places, but most were not places where children were allowed, or where I felt comfortable bringing them.  Also, there is the family size, which most places were packed being a Friday night in St. Augustine.  Also, we don't eat meat on Friday's so that limited our choices.  We ended up at a seafood place.  As we waited, everywhere I looked people were on their phones.  People were sitting at tables (we waited outside since there was no place to sit inside to wait) with their phones texting while having conversations with their dinner companions), people walked around on them, people ignored the people they were with to focus on them. 

After a text conversation with a friend and a family member on the way there, I had put my phone on silent and stuck it in my purse.  As I waited and watched, it struck me that if I was still using facebook, I would probably be one of those people.  While sitting and waiting, with nothing to do, I would have pulled it out and maybe checked into the restaurant so everyone could see where I was, and looked around paying attention to everyone but my family.  My usual gap in time while waiting would be to pull out my phone.  Instead, I engaged in a great session of people watching with my girls.  It was great. 

We finally ate dinner and I did pull out the phone for the camera to take a horrible "selfie" of Hannah and myself.  We both agree not to post it.  We ate outside and there was live entertainment and we really enjoyed the dinner.  Still, people around us were on their phones, and I realized maybe for the first time how much I have potentially missed by my actions in the past.

Anyway, this was a recurring theme I saw throughout the whole weekend.  I did have sound on to wait for Nick to call when he was done presenting so we could link up again, but that was it.  It was fabulous.  It was funny, when we were waiting another time to be seated, the girls were finding ways to occupy their time.  They were giving each other spelling words, or math problems to solve, or even sentences to diagram.  (Because my kids are weird like that, lol.) I wonder how many opportunities I have missed to interact with them while passing idle time because I had my face stuck in my phone.  "Face" book indeed. 

We did end up visiting two shrines and the Cathedral of St. Augustine, and I did get lots of pictures, but I will post them on my other blog than on here, so I can try to keep the content of both blogs where I intended.  I hope you all had a great weekend too!

Day 2

Super busy day today, so no time to really even miss facebook.  Girls are knee deep in quarter testing and that has taken up most of my day thus far.  So far so good.  I am so proud of all of them and their accomplishments. 

Also keeping us busy is our overnight trip tomorrow.  We haven't done much traveling this past year.  Well, I should say, we haven't done much traveling as a family.  I traveled to and from Buffalo over the summer when my mom passed away.  Nick has traveled to San Francisco and back.  Hannah was in D.C. this past February for the March for Life, and Nick was also in D.C. last month to present a paper. 

This Saturday, Nick is presenting another paper, this time in St. Augustine.  We decided to make it a family trip and stay overnight on Friday.  Since we haven't had a fun traveling trip in quite some time, the girls are overly excited.  The girls and I will wander around while Nick presents in the morning, and then, when he is done, we plan to visit a shrine that a friend told us about, the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche.  I hadn't heard of it before, and I am so excited we found out before we leave.  So special to mothers everywhere! 

You can find out more about it here: Our Lady of La Leche

I likely won't be on here until next week, but I hope to come back with some pictures!

Day 1 - Back Where I Started

I know the internet and having a home computer is the norm these days. I reflect back on my life, and we got a computer and internet capability much later than most.  I think about those times, pre-computer, and while I can't imagine not having so much information readily available at my fingertips, I do miss the simpler times.  I didn't worry about if my kids were like their peers, I didn't worry about how I dressed compared with most women, I didn't know what the latest fads were, what the latest toys and gadgets were, etc.  It was simple.  Of course, I only had 2 children then, and neither one was school aged yet.  I am not sure if my yearning for simpler days has more to do with the pressure of social media and keeping up with everyone, or from having 4 children who all home school and are also involved in various activities.  I suspect it is a mixture of both, although I am sure the latter has a lot to do with it.  In any case, I hope to get more back to the basics.

I have reached for the laptop today and twice even typed in the facebook web address.  It was out of pure habit.  At least I only did that twice, which is way better than when I did this two years ago.  Mostly, I reached for the laptop to read a couple of Catholic blogs, to enter grades and do tests, and to look up some information for a school question.  It has been kind of nice. 

I have some things I hope to focus on during Lent in the time that I was wasting away.  First, I want to delve into some more spiritual reading.  I should be doing it daily.  It is important, and I have let it slide by the wayside.  My girls do much more spiritual reading than I do, and I am not being a good example.  This is one of those instances that we learn from our children, and where I need to take on their attitude of fervor at reading things that are uplifting to my faith.

I also have many craft projects that I hope to spend time working on.  I love doing work with my hands.  I love scrapping, sewing, embroidery, crocheting, you name it, and I probably love it.  I have various projects already started, as well as many more to start.  Seeing something I have put together or made with my own hands is very rewarding. It is also a more productive way to spend my time.  It is fun, and it also makes me feel good about myself.  I hope to spend some time in this area. 

Bringing it Back

Just a quick little post to say I am bringing it back.  I mean this in many ways.  I am bringing back this blog, for this year of Lent, as I am giving up Facebook again.  It has taken two whole years to feel this yearning, and I am happy for the Lenten season, because it gives me an inspiration to turn off the social media, whereas on my own, I'm not sure I would be motivated enough.  Sad but true. 

I am bringing it back to my family.  That is where my focus should remain, and I have been too easily distracted and while my family obviously hasn't suffered due to social media, I honestly think I could be doing a better job without it.  We are called to be the Church at home, and I am not living up to the example set to me by the Holy Family.

I am bringing it back to me.  I am too easily sucked into reading about others and comparing myself.  I know this is a rehash of the last time I did it, but here I find myself again.  Also, I am more than a sum of my facebook status updates, and I need the reminder for myself. 

I am bringing it back to my friends.  My real ones.  The ones who make an effort to stay in touch when I don't make it so convenient.  It is easy to stay in touch these days, with so many ways.  Even without facebook, it is still easy in this day and age of technology.  We have many methods, email, phone, text message, etc.  I am guilty of this myself.  I will quickly "talk" to people on facebook. I ask them about things, comment on their things, like their pictures, etc.  But outside of facebook?  Do I make the effort to tell them I am thinking about them?  Do I really take the time out of my day and my busy life to ask how they are, or keep up with their goings on?  The answer is no, I don't.  I fear it is this fact that keeps people at bay from other people.  To me, and this is just my opinion, and it may change in the future, facebook is causing my relationships outside of my family to become very impersonal.  I don't need to call and see how your family is when I can just look at your page when I am already on the computer looking at other peoples lives.  I don't need to invite you over when I am already up to date and feeling social satisfaction through the computer screen.  I can't tell you how many times I can remember an event or something that happened to a facebook friend, but I can't remember who it was.  That's not right.

How many people read my status updates and are friendly with me, but yet, if I am not on facebook, they don't even think of me enough to contact me?  That tells me that I am sharing with the wrong people.  The simple solution would be to unfriend everyone I don't interact with outside of facebook.  I am not sure I can do that, to be completely honest.  I have cut down my friends list in the past, and I have seen it creep back up.  I know I don't interact with 190 people on a regular basis.  I worry about hurting someone's feelings, missing out on something important, and let's face it, I am just as guilty of social voyeurism as most people.  I'm not sure what I will do about that in the long run.

So, for now, I am bringing it back.  I will post my blog posts to facebook (ironically, right?) because I have been requested by some to do so, and because I do have friends and family and maybe what I learn can help someone else.  I hope if you read, you will take the time out of your life to tell me you are thinking about me, and that you will provide me with the means to do the same to you, by giving me contact information.

I'll be back on Facebook after Easter.  Have a blessed Lenten season!

Belated "It's over" post

I realize I sort of fell off the grid so to speak for a while.  Rather than see that as a negative, it is a positive thing in my life.

So much has happened since I started this blog at the beginning of my Lenten journey.  Heck, so much has happened since I last posted a blog.

As the days went by, I found myself less and less dependent on the Internet.  It wasn't something I was accustomed to much, since giving up facebook, as facebook was the main reason I was online to begin with.  More pressing things were at the forefront of my mind, including my family, my mental and emotional health, and my spiritual life.  After my weekend away, it really has felt like everything has sort of started clicking into place for me.  It is almost as if my ideals and my life are starting to finally align correctly.  I am happier, am enjoying life way more, and am not finding that I need constant distractions to deal with being me.

On the Saturday before Easter, my husband and I received our First Holy Communion, and our Confirmation into the Catholic Church.  This is like the pinnacle of the last year and a half of our lives.  It was, and is, utterly amazing.  I won't get overly religious in this posting, but receiving the Holy Eucharist for the first time (and other times since that day) has been a gift that I cherish and never realized fully how much I longed for it, and how life-changing it is.  What is best about it to me: it wasn't just a life-changing experience that has come and gone, it is a life-changing experience each and every time I receive it from now until the end of time.

Another amazing sort of last minute unplanned thing that happened that day:  my youngest daughter was baptized.  At rehearsal the morning of our special day, I asked our RCIA teacher (a deacon candidate in our church who will be a full deacon by the end of this month) when we could have Evy baptized, how soon after our First Communion and Confirmation.  We had asked our priest at the beginning of this journey, but he wanted to wait until we were in full communion with the Church to do it, which I respected.  Our teacher told us he would be baptizing his newest granddaughter soon and we could have Evy baptized the same day.  As we were getting our crew and our sponsors' crew into our respective vehicles, he came running out of the church and asked if we'd like her baptized that night along with the other RCIA candidates that would be receiving the sacrament of baptism.  Our answer, of course, was yes.  It worked out wonderfully as our sponsors are also her godparents.

Her godmother and I took her out shopping that afternoon for a special dress, even though Father said she didn't need to wear anything special, just a nice dress.  Godmother said it was her right and she wanted Evy to feel like a princess.  We found the perfect dress and she came sashaying out of the dressing room and we knew it was the one.  (I can't help hoping that she doesn't grow too much between now and her First Communion so she can perhaps wear it again.)

It was a very long service, Easter Vigil, but all the children held up so amazingly well.  I have to enter a little back story, when we first told the girls we would be going to the Catholic Church and started our conversion process, my oldest daughter was very upset and cried.  During Evelynn's baptism, I look out to where the girls were standing, and there my daughter stood, crying tears of joy and happiness for her sister.  Again, amazing.  Such a blessed day, right up there with getting married and birthing my daughters.

The Monday after Easter, I went on an unplanned road trip with my sponsor.  She is also my friend, one of the very very best, but for this blogs sake, and privacy, she is my sponsor.  We went on a pilgrimage.  We drove up to the Northern Virginia area, about a 10 hour drive from my house in GA.  We went up there as a main reason because her father was ill and in the hospital.  It was not a vacation by any means.

We also went to The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.  http://www.nationalshrine.com/site/c.osJRKVPBJnH/b.4719297/k.BF65/Home.htm

I was in awe as soon as I walked in the door.  Even if you are not Catholic, if you are ever up in D.C. you should go.  It is truly amazing.  You walk in there and it is just....wow.  I really have no words.  I saw a woman kneeling at a statue wailing and crying and praying.  I have no idea what language she spoke.  I saw a man kneeling before another statue, with his forehead pressed to the brass plaque, fervently praying in another unknown to me language.  Seeing people kneeling and praying and living their faith is just so incredibly uplifting.  (We actually went back on another taking a non-Catholic friend who agreed that anyone of any religious background - or not - would benefit from going.

I also was able to see my father's grave for the second time.  It was another emotional time.  I told my friend as we drove up that I didn't think I'd cry this time.  I was so incredibly wrong.  On another day, I was able to visit my oldest brother's grave for the very first time.  Another emotional visit.  I saw my sister-in-law and my most precious new baby niece.  Lastly, I was able to visit my only living brother at his home.  I had not seen him in almost 10 years.  Another emotional visit, but a very very good one. 

Not many can say they received their First Holy Communion, Confirmation, and made their first pilgrimage all within a weeks time.  I am truly blessed.

Now, on to facebook.  I am back.  I have even posted a few times.  I will readily admit to checking it pretty regularly, even frequently throughout those first few days.  It was almost like it was right back where it started from, except that it isn't.  Mostly, I check into some groups I am a part of.  I have checked up on people that I missed and wondered about.  I have also deleted some people that I did not wonder about (and likely haven't wondered about me) and I will do some more of that.  I do not spend loads of time scrolling down various peoples updates to see what 200 other people are doing with their days.  I am thinking, now that the novelty of it is over and past, I will just check it once every few days. 

All in all, I am a happier and more whole person.  I thank all of you who have participated reading during this journey.  Thanks for those that thought of me, and especially thanks to those who let me know they were thinking of me. 

Not sure what I am going to do with this blog at this point.  I am open to suggestions though!

Regarding Facebook

Regarding facebook and whether I will go back to it (since I have been asked):

I am not counting down the days until I can look at facebook again.  There are some groups that I miss, and those will probably be the things I look at first, but I have become so unaccustomed to checking it, I am not seeing myself doing it very often.  I'm not actually online very often anymore at all.  That can all change, it is quick to go back to old habits, but I actually hope that I don't go back to regular daily usage of it.  I have thought about my friends list and that will likely get gleaned down again.  It will be easier to do that since I know now who I miss and who has missed me and who I truly want to stay in that kind of touch with.

I have gained way too much during this 40 day time period to let it all go back to the way it was.  I have truly been able to focus on what is in front of me, and realize how much more important that is in my life rather that what I left behind me. 

My plan is to check into my groups maybe 2-3 times a week (these are more intimate and involve people/topics that are near and dear to me) but as for the general facebook, status updates and reading my feed, I just don't have the intention to make that a part of my daily routine.  I will likely check in once a week, but I'm going to try to limit it to that.  I think it will be easy.  I hope it will be easy.  I am not eager to change the new life I have adapted anytime soon.

Almost There

It is hard to believe that the 40 days are almost over.  They truly did feel like they flew by incredibly fast.  Lent is almost over and Easter is just in a few days.

It's been a while since I've blogged, partly because things have been pretty hectic here, and partly because I've really had nothing new to say that I haven't said already, and rather than sound like a broken record (which I'm sure I have) I figured it was better to not write at all.

Let's see, what has been up here.  We've had a birthday, I think I've blogged since Evy turned 6.  Last weekend we had a birthday party for her.  For those that know me well, you know I don't usually "do" birthday parties.  We usually do a family activity/party, and it doesn't involve decorating or having people over.  We gave Evy a bonafide birthday party complete with decorations and guests.

It actually turned out very well.  One of the moms asked me why I don't do birthday parties more often, since I do them so well.  I laughed and told her it was all the stress leading up to the party.  She had a tea party.  I spent a majority of the Friday before her party cutting out little tea cups and round circles for the cupcake picks, and little flags that said "eat me" for the tea sandwiches. I made a banner/bunting and decorated.  I also spent the morning before her party running out for some extra things that I had forgotten to pick up, and also running around to different grocery stores trying to find a certain kind of cookie.  Though the party was a success, when it w