Essays

I often found myself lying in bed at night in my messy house, with the kids’ school half done, meals that were late (and a few only qualified as meals in the most technical sense of the word) and wondering “where did that whole day go?”   Saint Paul said that Our Lord...

On occasion I’d see sign-ups to take new moms a meal in my mom’s group but I never participated for two reasons: I had a very hairy dog and was paranoid some dog hair might make its way into the food,  a social faux pas few can come back from. I’m not a great cook and...

The first couple of Lents after my reversion to the Catholic faith were pretty intense.  I undertook fasting diets that would have made Gandhi look like a glutton. I had prayer goals that the Seraphim wouldn’t have been able to keep up with.  The pile of books I...

I love this painting of Moses! He looks so based! "Yes I am a man wearing both pink and lavender. Say something. I dare you. I can snap you like a twig. I can, but I won't... ...which leads me to what's written on these here tablets."

When my baby looks at me with a look of absolute love and adoration it can, at times, make me a little uncomfortable.   I say to her, “Now calm down there little baby.  You haven’t really gotten to know me. I am far from perfect and have many, many, many faults.” She...

Advent never goes as planned for us.  Never. Not a single Advent. Not a one since we’ve started celebrating Advent. That doesn’t stop me from planning again each year.  Maybe there’s something about Christmas Carols, Christmas decor everywhere and the air almost...

One of #3's assignments last week was to illustrate the poem he'd memorized called 'The Owl and the Pussycat'. It was a love story that started with a courtship in a little pea-green boat and ended in marriage. It appears #3 got something entirely different out of...

Following the birth of my most recent baby, I wouldn’t stop bleeding.  Anxious medical personnel weighed Chux pads and injected me with various medicines to stop the hemorrhaging, but to no avail.  The blood kept flowing. The doctor found some placental pieces left...

While pregnant, I started a book by Saint Theresa of Avila on contemplative prayer called The Way of Perfection.  It was a book I’d bought years ago but hadn’t finished because I’ve had oatmeal-brain for the better part of a decade.  It is a little known fact that it...