the heroic details

The onset of March always reminds me of this quote from Charles' Dickens Great Expectations : “It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.” March has these intermittent bursts of warm sunshine mingled with chilling rain, and a persistent cold in the breeze can still pierce you.  It is early Spring.  The best days of Spring aren't here yet, but they're close.  The anticipation makes you want to burst, much like all the hyacinth shooting up out of the dirt. In my kids case, it makes them want to wear shorts and ditch their jackets when it's not yet "wear shorts and ditch your jacket" kind of weather.  They cross their bare arms and shiver as we walk into a store, but an hour later they're rolling windows down in the car because they are too hot.  This is March. What I'm Doing I'm waking up every morning, pulling open the blinds, seeing ...

February greeted us with an unusual snow day.  Our weather has been much colder than usual, and it's put a real cramp in our style.  I am simply not accustomed to cold weather and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with it. But since the backyard was wearing a beautiful coat of snow, I bundled the kids up and pushed them out the door. What I'm Doing: If I'm not mistaken, this is about the time that Isabelle came down with a rather unfortunate and very pesky stomach bug that kept us cooped up in the house for a couple of weeks.  Oddly enough, it didn't spread around to any other members of our family, but I wasn't about to risk sharing germs with our friends, so we just stayed home.  For a long time. This was the same time that my husband was adjusting to his new job, which turned out to have very demanding hours.  It's already becoming a distant memory now, but the first couple weeks of February had me pinned on the couch underneath a miser...

I don't really "do" resolutions, so I didn't have any lofty goals or plans as I enter 2017. The New Year was uneventful.  It was a Sunday and we went to Mass.  A week later, Elijah turned 10.  My first and oldest child officially entered the double digits.  I cannot believe I have been a parent for 10 years. I made a cake, took him shopping, and he had a friend over to play.  It was very low-key. Elijah's birthday is also the Feast of Epiphany.  So with that, we usher Christmas out of our house and pack it lovingly back into boxes. What I'm Doing: During the month of January, I embarked on a little project on my instagram account.  I posted pictures of ordinary moments of my day specifically pertaining to motherhood and housekeeping, and accompanied them with uplifting quotes about the high and holy calling of both.  I've been trying to really appreciate and enjoy these hard days of motherhood, and not just "get through it." H...

Here's my obligatory "I had a baby and this is my birth story" post!  There's not much to tell because everything went so smoothly.  Although not my fastest labor, it was by far my easiest. I went to bed around 10:00pm on Wednesday night, but I felt weird as I crawled under the covers next to my husband.  Although I couldn't describe how I felt, I remember saying to him: "I could be totally wrong, but it might be soon.  I feel different." I fell asleep and dreamed of contractions.  I can't remember anything else about the dream except that I was having contractions and they were killing my back!  Suddenly, I woke up with a full bladder, cramps, and sharp back pain.  I thought maybe the cramping was because I had to pee, but even after I went to the bathroom I was hit with a pretty hard contraction.  And so I was also hit with a realization: I'm in labor!  I looked at the clock and it was just a few minutes after midnight.  Her due da...

On Saturday, June 21st, the feast day of St. Aloysius, my husband went through the ceremony of Baptism, was confirmed, and received his first Holy Communion.  The sacraments were administered according to the old rite in an FSSP parish.  I had never seen an adult conversion done in the old rite, and it was a little elaborate!  The priest handed us the booklets to follow along and my eyes fell on the word "exorcism."  I asked, "Why do they call it an exorcism?"  And he said, "Because it is." Standing at the entrance of the church, the priest was dressed in a purple cope.  He called my husband by his first name and asked him what he is asking of God's church.  My husband responded, "Faith."  The priest then questioned him further, asking things such as "Do you renounce Satan?" and "Do you believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth?"  My husband would respond, "I do renounce him" and "I ...

So many beautiful things collided into one on this day, and I am so grateful.  First, today is my birthday.  I was given this life, and I have been given the gift of a birthday every year for 27 years.  Thank you, God, for this gift of life. Normally I don't talk about what gifts I've received because it feels... tacky?  But this is my blog and there are maybe four people who even know it exists, so why not. From my husband, I received both a Keurig AND a Kindle Fire HD.  Coffee and books?  The man is good to me.  The look on his face when he's doing poorly at Flappy Bird is pretty great, too. Oh, and the flowers?  My sweet, big brother picked them up for me from Pike Place Market!  Here he is taking a nap because driving really far to see your sister is exhausting: My parents also made it over from Idaho for the occasion and gave me some beautiful gifts.  My mom knit me a pair of amazing socks, gave me some yarn, a...