Looking back on 2014, Forward to 2015

Hello again, dear readers!! It's been a long time. The end of the year got crazy and blogging fell to the wayside. I'm back and hope to be a bit more regular, we'll see if it works out or not. Ha! If you've followed this blog for a long time you know how it goes. I'll be here for a while and then I'll disappear for a time. Hopefully this is one of those times when I am back. #crossingfingers

So, since I've been MIA for a time, I thought I'd give some highlights from the previous year. I'll be as quick as possible.

January 2014: newborn baby, twins got RSV, continued struggles with nursing

February 2014: I attended a conference for my profession in Atlanta and took the two-month old with me. Thankfully he was great, slept a lot, and nursing felt better (though it never felt "natural").

March 2014: went back to work, had to settle into a pattern of nursing, pumping, daycare drop off and pick ups, and getting to work close to on-time.

April 2014: Another trip to Atlanta, this time the whole family went. We celebrated my brother's wedding from the previous fall (they got married in San Francisco). It was a fun party.

May 2014: Birthdays! Hubby turned 43 and the boys turned 3. Hubby built our garden boxes.

June 2014: Gardening and new windows (18!!) for our house.

July 2014: Peter got sick, difficulty breathing, ended up at the doctor office for several hours then the emergency room, and finally an overnight hospital stay. Diagnosis: pneumonia. Also, failed attempt at potty training.

August 2014: Peter gets sick again, exactly a month later. Another trip to the emergency room, no overnight stay this time, but a different diagnosis. More doctor appointments over the next week, diagnosis: asthma. Also this month, I was invested as a Benedictine Oblate Novice.

September 2014: Trip to the beach! Family vacation in Hilton Head. Fun times! Boys still hate the water (although Ethan did get in the pool twice over the course of the week). Silas (now 8/9 months old) seemed to enjoy the water. Maybe I'll get one water kid out of this bunch.

October 2014: normal life, all kind of a blur.

November 2014: I turned 40. My birthday gift to myself was to stop pumping. Silas started on whole milk. (And the heaven's sang with joy!)

December 2014: Silas turned 1, the daycare did their Christmas program, and we had a quiet family Christmas at home, just the 5 of us. Oh, and Christmas miracle!! I planned our Christmas dinner AND did all the cooking. Yes, me! I know, crazy, right?!

With 2014 over I can look back in awe at what all was accomplished. How we managed to do the things we do with two toddlers/preschoolers and a baby ... I have no idea. When you're in the thick of it you just do it. Then you look back later and think, "How in the world??" I'm still kind of in the thick of it but feeling a bit more capable with each passing day. This is probably why blogging had to take a back seat recently, just too tired of the day-to-day stuff to fit in the time for blogging.

Onward ho to 2015!!

This year I am working on making myself a better person and, hopefully, in the process, my family will become better and stronger as well. I don't like "resolutions" but prefer to think of these as personal goals. (Yes, yes, no real difference, but it makes me feel better, let me have this one.)

First of all, I've heard a lot of people choosing a word to focus on each new year. This year I am focusing on the word industrious. I have a big reason why this word is my focus this year, but I can't share that quite yet. However, it fits well because this is the kind of thing that I know I need to work on right now, for a variety of reasons involving both my home and my work.

My other personal goals for this year (many fit in with the idea of being more industrious) are:

To become better organized
I need (NEED!!) to be better organized in many areas of my life. Just before Thanksgiving I completely organized my desk at work: cleaned out files, cleaned off my desk, dusted my desk, found old buried (literally) problems and fixed those, rearranged my organizational system (well, okay, basically created one out of the chaos), and set up a whole series of folders and accessible files, etc. I feel better about getting things done at work because I can see everything. In the last month of work before the winter break I got a ton of stuff done. I want the same thing at home.

I need to be better organized in so many ways. I want to organize the mess that is our basement, I want more shelving in our storage area and better/more shelving in the toy room, I need to declutter, declutter, declutter, and I need to organize my desk space and other working space. There is so much that needs to be done in this area. I probably have rich fodder here for future blog posts.

Eat Healthier/Get Exercise
The perpetual goal. One thing I realized recently though is I can't take everything on at once. That's how I end up failing. I can work on eating healthier along with the organizational thing, but I think I need to put the exercising off a month or two. I just need time to get other things in order first. It's not procrastinating, it's keeping my sanity. So I have some plans of attack in my mind and hope to institute those in the coming months.

Daily Family Prayer Time
#1 We've been slackers here with the exception of before meals and before bed with the kids. I want something more now and I think the boys (the twins, anyway) are old enough to at least listen while Hubby and I pray and eventually join in here and there. I know ti won't be perfect, but we have to start something.

#2 We need a prayer space in our home. I think this will help with some focus and helps to set the mood. This also fits in with the organizing aspect of my year. I have plans for rearranging some furniture and taking some tips from The Little Oratory for giving us a small space in our home as a prayer corner.

TV Time and Bedtime
I'm making a conscious effort this year to turn off the TV by 10 PM each night and I plan on eliminating TV during Lent this year. I am also planning on being in bed by 11 or 11:30. I've been terrible at getting myself to bed at a decent time for a few months now and the TV was a big part of the problem.

Gee, I wonder why I have a hard time adding exercise into my day. #duh

(Shhhh, I'm breaking this rule tonight just to write this post ... and to bake brownies for a work function tomorrow. << That's a good excuse for being up late, right? Oh wait, I'm supposed to be eating healthier, too. #DietAlwaysStartsOnMondays)

Read More
It makes me sad that I used to be such an avid reader and now can barely make it through 2-3 books a year. But I seriously want to make reading more of a priority this year. I remember reading in one of Matthew Kelly's books how by reading just 5 pages of a good spiritual book each day we can get through several books in a year and thus grow immeasurably in our faith (I don't remember the exact stats, but they were impressive). This extends to several things for me:

1. Reading the Gospel reading for each day (and I found a great app to help me with that)
2. Always working on reading a good spiritual book, even just a few pages a day (I have plenty of unread books on my shelves, plus I'm open to doing book reviews either here or at Catholic Sistas)
3. Reading the Rule of Saint Benedict each day (I have a schedule to make it easy, can read it three times through in a year by only reading a paragraph or two a day)

That's it. Easy peasy, right. Haha! No, I'll admit, it is a lot. But like I said above, I don't plan on doing this all at once. This whole year will be a work in progress and by the end of the year I hope to be at a place where I can feel accomplished in some areas or that I'm making progress in others. The one thing I don't want is to feel like I did none of these things. 

And now I'm done. Enough talk from me tonight, this post is already crazy long. So with that, I bid you good night (or good morning?).

A Tuesday Ten Book Review

I finished my first book of the year!! Most years (in recent memory) I read one maybe two books the whole year. I'm on a mission to read more this year. My first book was Matthew Kelly's The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic.

I was hesitant about this book because I find Matthew Kelly very repetitive. I'm sure it's a technique in his speaking that helps to drive home a point but I find it hard to read his writing when he is constantly repeating the same thing. I found this book to be much less repetitive than my previous experiences with him. Not that it didn't still have some repetitiveness, it was just less so.

This book was given away at my parish on Christmas weekend. We weren't around then, but I was able to pick it up the next weekend when we were back in town. I started reading it out of curiosity (since I was a bit hesitant at first) and ended up being drawn in. And I ended up liking the book a lot and I believe I got something out of it.

I was surprised to find out that his research showed that only about 7% of Catholics are the ones that are the most likely to be the volunteers, primary financial contributors, and most dedicated Catholics in a parish. Only 7%! He was expecting to find that number to be 20% to correlate with the 80/20 principle (80 percent of the work is done by 20 percent of the people--usually a business principle, but I've seen it applied in many other areas as well). Instead only 7% of the people do about 80% of the work in a Catholic Church.

As I continued reading I realized that I probably do not fall into that 7%. Few of us do. That was a bit eye-opening, to say the least! With this book Kelly was trying to make the case that we as Catholics could change the world just by increasing that number by 1%. But how?? That's where the four signs came in.

In short, he broke down the four signs to prayer, study, generosity, and evangelization. Anyone who has ever  done a Cursillo retreat will recognize three of these signs and honestly I think generosity can be folded into evangelization. But what I like is that he broke these four signs down and made them seem simple.

I'm almost out of time (wow ten minutes isn't very long!), but I wanted to say that I sort of disagree with him on one small point (and I'm out of time, but I'm going to finish this one thought anyway). In his last chapter he summarizes the points of the book and speaks a little to the erosion of the Church in our modern time. He is pushing for a revival of sorts and mentions that the Church could crumble without it. I understand what he is getting at and why he goes this direction, but we shouldn't forget that Jesus Himself told us that His Church would never fall. Yes, it may deteriorate a lot due to negligence on the part of the people and outside forces trying to break us apart, but I think there will always be a Church until the day Jesus comes back and there is no longer need for a human Church. What I think Kelly was trying to emphasize here was that we need to work on building the Church up and being unapologetic in our Catholic faith. I can agree with that. But I was just struck by his mention that the Church could disappear.

And that's all I got. Overall, a very good book and I recommend it. Sorry I ran over my ten minutes! If you're interested in this book you can find out more about it at www.dynamiccatholic.com.

The Non-Resolutions-In-Late-January Post

If you remember, I took a short break from blogging beginning at the end of November. It wasn't a complete break since I still added an occasional  post here and there and continued writing over at Catholic Sistas. The break was really a good way to just focus on other things for a while without feeling any pressure to keep something new and fresh going on here.

Plus ... well ... I just had a lot going on.

And I still have a lot going on. Somehow there is always something.

Regardless, I am picking up writing again when I can, but I liked not feeling like I had to write something. Not that I have any pressure from anyone but myself, but myself can be pretty demanding sometimes. Myself is learning to be less demanding and I am reconsidering what I want to use this blog for.

I want this blog to reflect more who I am. Yes, I did read Jen's post about being authentically yourself, but no that is not what inspired me to think about this. It was actually on my mind during my little blogging "break" in December and I spent a bit of time reflecting on that. Jen's post helped articulate what was already in my head and I so appreciated that because she is definitely more articulate than I am.

I don't yet have any plans for what I am doing next. But I have a lot of things in my life I want to work on. So I think for starters, while I am going to try and get back to blogging on a regular basis, my "schedule" may be a little less than it has been in the past. Not that I was even a daily poster anyway. I know it helps to post as regularly as possible, but I don't think my mission is to gain readers. So if you're here, great! I hope you stick around. If I get new readers over time, that's great too. I hope those who are here enjoy reading what I post. But I'm not going to be trying to be a "big time" blogger.

That's one thing that will help the pressure I tend to put on myself. As for everything else in my life ....

I'm not a fan of New Year's resolutions. I've done them in the past, they never last long. It's now the end of January anyway, so we're way past the period where everyone posts about how they are not making New Year's resolutions and instead doing x, y, or z, blah, blah, blah. So consider this my non-resolutions for the foreseeable future.

I have a new goal to be done with any sort of emailing, blogging, blog/internet reading, or Facebook time by 11 o'clock each night. I managed to do this for a short period in January and then I got sick and my desire to follow any self-imposed rules fell by the wayside. Whatcha goin' to do.

If I can do the above, I also plan on doing a little bit of reading from an actual book (or maybe the Kindle) before bed. The goal is about 5 pages or so from a good Catholic book. I also added a new tab at the top of the blog to my reading list for the year. Feel free to check it out.

Speaking of good Catholic books ... I am not looking for recommendations. Sorry. I actually have tons of good books that I've never read. I'll be lucky if I read 12 books this year and I guarantee I have more than that around the house. [Probably mostly still in boxes because we have nowhere to put books currently, but I'll figure that out as I go.]

I'm also taking a new look at what I'm choosing to read. I'm not anywhere near the spiritual level required to read some of the books that I have; books that were purchased because they looked so interesting and came so highly recommended. I'm being more realistic with myself. I get bogged down in some of those books. I need to take a step back and read something I'm going to get more out of, something that will lead me down the right spiritual path, something that will prepare me for higher levels of spiritual reading down the road. I think I'll be a lot more successful this way.

Finally, I need to get up when my alarm goes off in the morning (as opposed to an hour later) and spend at least 15-20 minutes in prayer. If I don't do it then I won't do it at all. I know, because I haven't. It's really a very simple solution to a problem I've been struggling with for a very long time. And yet, I can't seem to implement it.

These things are all works in progress. I think over the next year you'll see more posts on how I am progressing in this area and where I am struggling. It's a journey, I know we all have challenges on the journey and I welcome your thoughts and experiences in your similar struggles during the year.

And with that, I will say goodnight. Because it is already way past 11. C'est la vie!

Keeping Busy, Keeping it Real

The blog has kind of gotten away from me the last week plus. If you've been following the Saturday Smiles posts you know that I've fallen down on the job the last two weeks. I do plan to continue those posts, but sometimes life gets busy.

Busy. Ack! I hate that word. I especially hate using it as an excuse. Everyone's busy. My time isn't any more valuable than anyone else's.

Regardless, things have been a bit crazy. At times like these it is the blog that falls by the wayside. But I'm not giving up, I'm just taking a break and may be blogging a little less from now until the New Year. We'll see, I'm not making any promises.

Right now, my focus (after God, family, and work) is getting through a retreat weekend that is coming up soon. I'm not attending the retreat but I am one of the people working in the background to make it happen. It's also my last retreat to work on, I'm rotating off the group and handing the reins off to someone else. I don't know who that someone else is yet, though. If you could say a prayer that we find someone to replace me and that this next retreat weekend is successful, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

After all that, I am obligated to do two posts in December for Catholic Sistas. One is already started and I'm working on it this week. The second is totally up in the air. Anyone have any ideas for me?

Oh, and then there is this holiday coming up. I can't even think about it yet. I have no idea what I'm getting for my boys for Christmas this year. Hubby and I did decide that we are not doing gifts for each other, but instead we're buying a new TV for our family room. One thing decided!

Finally, I am thinking about adding a couple of things to the blog. I hesitate a bit to do this because the blog is already a bit busy looking. I have two things in mind and may do it as pages at the top rather than adding more stuff to the side bars. The first is a list of my current prayer intentions (thanks to priest's wife for the idea); the second is a list of what I am currently reading. I think both ideas would be good for me to have to keep track of these things. Might as well share it with my readers too.

So that's what's going on with me. I'll be here on and off during the next month and hope to be back blogging regularly in January. I miss it, it's a good outlet for my desire to write. And because I like sharing fun things here too, I hope you'll enjoy this as much as I did:

From Catholic Memes on Facebook

Have a wonderful Advent and Christmas!! I'll post when I can.

When I grow up ...

When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up?  

I wanted to be a writer.  From about the time I was in 4th or 5th grade until sometime in high school, I wanted to be a writer.  That was it.  Creative writing, fiction.  I didn't care if I wrote the great American novel, I just wanted to write and see my writing published.

I won a writing award in 5th grade and a couple times during the middle school years.  Of all the various awards and trophies I got growing up for various activities (swimming, piano, etc.), the writing awards meant the most to me and I think they are still in a box with my grade school stuff.

But in high school I started going a different direction.  Freshman year I wrote a poem that I submitted for the county writing fair and didn't even make it past the school level.  For whatever long-forgotten reason, I never bothered entering again.  This was the time when music became much more all-encompassing of my life.  And so I started leaning in that direction.

In graduate school I had to do a master's thesis.  I clearly remember meeting with my thesis adviser and hearing her tell me that I was a great researcher but not much of a wordsmith.  Ouch!  And she was a prolific writer and very well-known, well-respected figure in her field.  Double ouch!

So after years and years of wanting to be a writer and yet pursuing music instead, I ended up a music librarian.  And I have no regrets.  I believe that God had a plan and He was in control the whole time.  I am where I am for a reason.

But several years ago I got into blogging, totally for fun.  And then last year I started writing for a new blog with a bunch of online friends.  I also have a few publications professionally, but those are mostly researched lists of things or statistics, very little narrative writing.  I still don't consider myself a writer.

And yet, last Friday I sat in a radio studio for an interview and heard my interviewer call me a Catholic writer.  

A Catholic writer?  Me?  Really?

It was an odd thing to hear after all these years.  Is that what I am now?  I don't think so, or um ... I didn't think so.  I read the blogs of  Catholic writers and follow them on Facebook and Twitter and put their books on my wish list hoping one day to find the time to actually read these wonderful wordsmiths.  Yet, I never considered myself to be a part of that group.

Okay, yes, I blog.  But does that make me a writer?  And yes, I write now for another collaborative blog, but I know I'm nowhere near the best writer of that group.  Even so, do these things make me a writer?  Or more specifically a Catholic writer?

I don't know.  I'm still pondering it.  I smile when I think of it, in a how ironic kind of way.  

It's funny how your life can turn out sometimes.  Something you wanted to do but never pursued could still end up being the thing you end up doing.  Maybe not in the way you thought you would do it, but you're still doing it.  And it can completely sneak up on you too!

Image source MorgueFile

#500 with a Hippopotamus

Welcome to post #500 on Journal of a Nobody!  That seems like a lot to me even if it is over the course of about 6 years.  I'm certainly not the most prolific writer, but it has been fun to share bits and pieces of my life and explore topics of interest in a semi-public space.  So here's hoping for continued fun in the next 500 posts.

Father's Day was this past Sunday and I was kind of a slacker.  I did have picture cards of the boys that I sent to my dad, my father-in-law, the boys' two godfathers, and one for Hubby.  We also went out for breakfast after Mass on Sunday morning.  Otherwise, that was the extent of our Father's Day celebration.

Yes, total slacker here.

However, on Monday I was out running errands alone and made a quick stop at a bookstore.  Hubby has a favorite book among the plethora of books the boys have:

Do you know this book?  Oh, my goodness, it is hilarious.  When I commented on the fact that Hubby picks it up almost every night to read to the boys he explained why:

"What is not to like?  It has verse, funny animals, a happy ending, and a surprise ending."

So I decided that Father's Day needed a little more oomph than I had given it the day before and Hubby needed more books by this author.  I had no idea what a prolific author Sandra Boynton was!  So many to choose from.  I chose three and presented them to Hubby at dinner Monday night.

You know you've done good when Hubby is excited about a few children's board books as a Father's Day gift.  He's so cute!

7 Quick Takes Friday, vol. 40

~1~

Before the boys afternoon nap on Thursday, Peter had carried a small, plastic toy hammer up with him that I had put on their dresser.  So when I got them up a couple hours later, I handed the hammer to Ethan to occupy him while I changed him.  Peter, I discovered, is very attached to that hammer.  When I placed Ethan down on the floor Peter, who had already been changed and was on the other end of the room, spotted the hammer and made a beeline toward Ethan.  I could see his eyes fixed on that hammer.  Ethan meanwhile had no idea that the object he was crawling around with (clanging against the hardwood floor) was now the object of his brother's affection.  Just as Peter got within reach, Ethan innocently turned a different direction.  I laughed as I watched Peter stop while his eyes followed the movement of the hammer.  This happened a couple more times and was quite the site!!  Ethan was clueless.  So cute!!  Finally, Ethan decided to pull himself up on the changing table, but he had to let go of the hammer.  He put it up on the shelf, let go to pull himself up on his feet, and Peter made his move.  He reached up, grabbed the hammer, and crawled away.  The whole show was so funny!!  And to top it off, I don't think Ethan even realized that the toy hammer had disappeared.

~2~

Although I haven't been writing as much on the blog as I would like, I am still writing.  Just not here.  I recently put up my last interview on the blog that serves as an employee newsletter of sorts at my work.  Before leaving for my sabbatical I did several interviews for the series I was doing on "What we're Reading."  The last one is what I finally up called "What we're Reading: from Sonnets to Manga."  I really enjoyed doing this series and hope to continue doing it when I return to work in July.  It's been fun to talk to people who work in a library about what they are reading.

~3~

I also have posted a few new posts on my sabbatical project blog.  If you're interested in those, you can check it out at Music Recitals Project.  I wrote up a couple at the end of April and another one just yesterday.

~4~

I've also been working on some posts for Catholic Sistas (watch for one from me coming on Monday).  Do you read Catholic Sistas?  If so, we would love for you to come "like" our Facebook Fan Page.  And while you're at it, come follow Catholic Sistas on Twitter as well: Catholic_Sistas.  And, spread the word, please!!

~5~

I am so lucky!!  I have a great community around me!  Some friends of mine and I made plans for next week to have a girl's night out.  How many groups of friends plan to go out together and have the plans start with evening Mass?  I CAN NOT wait until next Wednesday!  So much so actually, that for most of THIS Wednesday I thought it was that night.  I was so disappointed when I realized I was a week off. 

And then I got a call this week from another friend.  She invited me to go with her to a MOMs group gathering.  This MOMs group is at our parish, but I have never attended.  I usually work, so it's not something I can attend.  Since being home on sabbatical I thought about it, but I haven't yet made room for it in our schedule.  But this was an evening thing!!  A gathering at a member's house to say a Rosary together followed by socializing.  That just sounds so wonderful to me!!  And I'd be able to meet other moms from our parish.  Unfortunately I realized that the night in question won't work for me.  Sad again!!  But I hope this group will do it again and I can have another chance to join them.

~6~

You know what is lacking from this blog?  Pictures!!!  I'm sure you're all wondering if I ever take pictures of my two boys.  Well, yes, I do.  The problem is getting them off my camera to use.  Actually, the problem is time.  I actually have several pictures on the camera that I'd love to share.  The boys are getting so big!  They are 11 months old now.  Where has the time gone??

~7~

Finally, a question for all of you married readers: Are you and your spouse involved in any ministries at your parish together?  Like both on the same committee or whatever?  I would like to become more involved in my parish again and would like to do it with my husband.  I have some ideas, but I'm curious what others do.  Pre-Cana classes?  NFP classes?  Something else?  Share in the comments, please!!

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.com.

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.

7 Quick Takes Friday, vol. 34

~1~

Week one of sabbatical project has started.  I hope it will go well.  By day two I was starting to wonder if I was crazy to try working at home with two 7 month old babies and no day care.  Still too early to tell.  If anyone local wants to come visit during the day you're welcome to come during non-nap times.  The boys would love it!

~2~

I started a new blog just for my sabbatical project.  If you're curious about what it is or how it's going, I'll be journaling my way through the sabbatical over there.  You can go to Music Recitals Project to see more.  It's not a very creative name, so if you have suggestions, I'm all ears.  I'm not attached to the current name at all.  Seriously: not. at. all.

~3~

Also this week, I'm back on the wagon.  That is, the weight-loss wagon.  I've fired up the old Lose it! app on the iPod, weighed myself on Sunday, and started counting calories.  Man, I'm hungry!!  I also have a support group on Facebook that a group of friends started, so I'll have some accountability this time.  And motivation!

~4~

The boys and I went for a walk on Wednesday morning.  It's a little too cold for walking the neighborhood, so we went to the mall to walk before the stores opened.  I barely made it.  We had a pooping episode in the morning that required a change in clothes and an unexpected load of laundry and then when I got to the mall I had to remember how to unfold the very big and very heavy double stroller.  It took me a while to remember how the wheels fanned out, but I finally got it.  I was determined to get my walk in and not be foiled by a stroller!  I do love the stroller, though!  It is great: turns easily, is very smooth, looks comfortable for the boys.  But man is that thing heavy!

~5~

I got a Kindle for Christmas!!  It was totally unexpected.  I had been looking at them, but couldn't decide which I wanted.  Did I want the basic, original Kindle or the Fire?  Did I want 3G capabilities?  Did I want to wait a year and see if they released a Fire with 3G?  Maybe I should look at the Nook?  But all my questions got answered for me: Hubby got me the Kindle Fire.  So far I'm loving it!!  I downloaded a whole bunch of free Kindle books and am currently reading The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus (I also got free e-books by Aquinas, Belloc, Ignatius of Loyola, John Henry Newman, and a few others).  Hubby downloaded Angry Birds and started playing Words with Friends.  Currently he may use it more than I do.

I also like that I can get Facebook and my email on it, plus I'm enjoying the Pulse app that comes automatically with it.  Pulse is a little like an RSS feed, but mostly just for newspapers and magazines (current events), though you can also set up part of it to show you the links your friends post on Facebook.

I realized the other day that one of the best features of this is that when I travel I only have to bring the Kindle with me and not my whole laptop.  Bonus!!

~6~

Speaking of Christmas, we had a great Christmas visiting my family in Atlanta.  Everyone was there for Christmas day: my parents, all four of us kids along with two spouses, a fiance, and a girlfriend, four grand-kids, and my aunt who just recently moved (back) to the Atlanta area.  Opening gifts was overwhelming, probably because my two children aren't old enough to do anything and have no idea what is going on, so I felt as if I was constantly being brought gifts from my niece (6) and nephew (3).  Boy were those two excited!!  It was a fun day and very relaxing.  My family is always laid back during holidays, just hanging out, catching up, playing with the little ones, watching football, and enjoying a nice meal together.  And it was wonderful to have everyone there!

How was your Christmas?  Did you travel or stay home?  See extended family or celebrate with your immediate family?  Any special traditions?

~7~

My husband has already accomplished one big goal this year: re-organize the garage so the van will fit in it.  Success!!  The garage was already pretty well organized and neat (for a garage) but there was really only space for the two cars.  Now that we sold one of the cars and Hubby re-organized things, the van fits!!  That is quite an accomplishment if you know the neighborhood and kinds of houses in this area.  Garages are small!  The van barely fits, but it's in there.  Now that the weather is turning colder, this will be a good thing.  I don't want to deal with doors frozen shut early in the morning when we have to go somewhere (no repeats of what we had on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception trying to get to an 8am Mass ... no surprise, we were late).  And it was snowing all day while Hubby was working in the garage, thankfully mostly flurries or heavy flurries with the occasional moments of accumulating snow.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at Conversion Diary.