Making Some Changes

I'm making changes, though probably not enough.  Sure, I need to lose weight which probably means getting rid of the remaining Easter candy and moving my body more.  And something has got to change with the nap schedule.  [Are we really moving to one nap a day ALREADY!?!?!]  It's getting hard to get any work done anymore!!  But those aren't the changes I'm making right now.

I've given the blog a slight face lift.  If you only read via a blog reader or RSS feed, click on over to see some of the new things I've added.  I kept the background the same but changed the layout a bit.  I also finally added "pages" to the top of the blog.  Hooray!!

Okay, so pages, or tabs, aren't completely new, but I don't think having just the one "Home" tab really counts as much.  Now I have two more.

One tab in particular will be a continual work in progress and I hope my readers will check it out and share more resources than what I've already listed.  It is labeled "Pregnancy Loss Resources."  It's a pretty small list right now because I know there are many more resources out there than what I've already listed.  But this is just the beginnings and mostly off the top of my head (and past my bedtime).  So more to come on that and I hope if you know of a good resource (particularly Catholic ones) you'll share it so I can add it to the list.

Wouldn't it be great to have a really good comprehensive list of resources on pregnancy loss, particularly from a Catholic standpoint, that is easy to share with someone?  I think so!!  It was the one thing I looked for after my first loss and never really found.  There is more out there now, thank goodness, but we still need a one-stop-shop.  I hope this can be one of those places.

Thank you, faithful readers, for following my blog and for any helpful resources you are willing to share to help others during times of pregnancy loss.  May God bless you abundantly.

Another with the Sistas

I had not planned on writing two posts for Catholic Sistas this week, but due to unexpected circumstances I jumped in to help someone out.  I had originally started writing this piece for this blog, but when I offered to help out it became a post for Catholic Sistas instead.

I'm starting to lean more toward writing about pregnancy loss again and this post takes on that topic.  So for those who have found my blog while searching for information on miscarriage, stillbirth, or pregnancy loss, I encourage you to go check out this post with the Sistas:

Easter Teaches us Hope, Even During Times of Loss

Find me with the Sistas today

But Mom ... everyone is doing it!!

All of us, at one time or another, has said this (or something similar) to one of our parents.  If you’re a parent, you’ve probably even heard it from your own kids.  And when you do hear this from your kids you probably hear yourself saying the same thing to them as you heard from your own mom or dad:

If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you?

You don’t live at Everyone’s house, you live at our house.

We don’t do things in life because everyone does them, we do things because they are the right thing to do.

We’re not everyone, we’re our own family and we do things differently.

It is so easy as a kid to feel like everyone is doing something that you are not allowed to do.  You start feeling a little like the outcast, like everyone around you is part of some special club, or you laugh at jokes and stories that don’t make any sense to you because you didn’t get to go to the movie everyone else saw, or see the TV show that everyone else watched, or go to the party that everyone else went to.

And then you became an adult!

Suddenly you could make your own decisions.  No one could tell you that you couldn’t do something.

No one.

Or … maybe not.


Read the rest here at Catholic Sistas.

7 Quick Takes Friday, vol. 39

~1~

Lent this year was decent, probably better than last year, but nothing Earth-shattering.  I gave up something that may have been a little superficial and I finally relented for the first time in my life and used the Sundays to enjoy the thing that I gave up.  While in some ways this was good for me (the giving up part, not the Sunday part), it still felt kind of ... flat.  

~2~

Good Friday, however, was different.  Last year I didn't fast on Ash Wednesday or Good Friday because I was growing twins and having restless leg syndrome and all sorts of other issues due to being on bed rest.  I needed to stay nourished.  This year I was able to fast again.  I don't completely recall how Ash Wednesday was, but I think I remember it being difficult.  Somehow Good Friday was not.  I'm not entirely sure why and I've been contemplating that for a few days now.  Still no answers.  

~3~

I did add something to my fast on Good Friday.  I gave up Facebook for the day.  This was easier to do than I expected and somewhat difficult.  Facebook has become a lifeline for me, for better or worse.  More and more I find myself going there to visit with my friends from a Catholic group.  We all fasted from the group on Good Friday which was partly why I didn't find giving up Facebook completely on that one day too difficult.  But I still like seeing what my other friends post, getting news, and all sorts of other things that pop up on my Facebook feed.  Honestly, these days I get more of my news from Facebook than I do from anywhere else.  So that part was a little difficult.  Maybe, too, this contributed to why giving up food on that day didn't seem as hard as it usually does.  It's a theory.

~4~

So I had extra time on Good Friday, right?  Yes and no.  I still have plenty to do with two little ones and work.  But I did use the time on that day that I normally would have spent on Facebook catching up on many, many blogs that I hadn't been reading.  I also reorganized the blogs in my blog reader and deleted a few that either were no longer active or I wasn't really reading anyway.  It felt refreshing to clean those up.  It was also so great to catch up on the writings my favorite bloggers had been doing.  I love reading smart, witty, and thought-provoking bloggers and I realized just how much I had missed that.

~5~

Actually I realized that I missed a lot of things about following all those blogs more regularly.  It is not just the  intellectual stimulation from the blogs I read (and the fun posts too), it is just the joy of reading someone else's ability to put words together in an inspiring and creative way.  I love that!  I miss that!!  I want to be able to do that!!  As fun as Facebook is, most posts there are pretty short one-liners (or so) that express a clever thought or relate a cute/funny/ridiculous happening in someone's life.  All fun to read, but not necessarily the kind of reading that is going to be helpful to someone who wants to improve her writing skills.

~6~

It's not really a big revelation.  Actually it's one of the basics of being a good writer right after "Write what you know": A great writer is a great reader.  I don't read enough.  That's so weird to say!  I used to devour books!  I was the kid in school that always had a book with me.  I read whole books in a day, spent whatever time I could reading while my mom told me to go play outside with the other kids, and when I wasn't reading I was writing.  Somehow, somewhere I got off that track and have never quite found my way back.  I still read, but not like I used to.  My reading tastes have changed considerably since my younger days, but the desire to read, I believe, has always been there.  I just haven't been listening.

This past Friday, while fasting from food and Facebook (how odd does that sound together!), that hunger came back.  And along with it, my desire to write more.

~7~

Lent overall may have fell flat for me this year, but I feel like God got my attention on Good Friday.  And He did it despite the fact that I did not go to Good Friday services as I had planned (oh, yeah, I was sick that day too; forgot to mention that).  There will be more writing in my future and most of it will be on this blog and will be more focused (write what you know).  Don't worry, updates on the boys, family life, and pictures will still be here, but I want to do something more as well.  Stay tuned!

For more clever, witty, smart, thought-provoking, and funny Quick Takes, check out ConversionDiary.com.

He is Risen!!

He is risen!!

Alleluia, alleluia!!

Resurrection
Giotto

Happy Easter!!