Dear Readers,

I've started a new blog.  Why?  Well, as you all know, my blogging time and motivation took a hit for awhile there.  I keep trying to get back to it.  But every time I open this page to write a new post I feel the weight of all that has been said here already.  I mean, I love all that has been said here already and I stand behind it, but I needed a fresh start. I need a wide open space to just start again.  I'm like that.  I am the chick who has 25 journals, all with pretty pictures on the covers, horses and rainbows that sort of thing, that were only 1/4 of the way written in before they were abandoned for the next pretty little cover that came along.  I hope you will visit me at my new place. You can find it here.  And I hope you will enjoy it as much as you have this one! If you did indeed enjoy this one. Maybe you just started each day with my terrible blog so you could feel better about your own life. That's okay. I will take the numbers where ever I can get them.  Please feel free to curse my new blog too.

Sincerely,
Cassie

Help! I'm addicted to Scrabble, Words With Friends, Hanging With Friends, Lexulous, and possibly just my iPod itself. I waste time just searching for word games and other free apps... But lo, what did I find today? A Blogger app! I have a blog writing app already, and it hast helped me yet, but maybe, just maybe, this one will get me going again. And please someone tell me the antidote for word games. Or better yet, download those apps and invite me to a game!

Back...again

Nothing like 3 months between posts....

Once again here I am determined to start blogging again. Just as before, the immediacy of Facebook has distracted me from this blog. But that's all Facebook is - a distraction. At least most of the time. It is also a wonderful resource and place of good friends, prayer warriors, like minded thinkers, and support. But, 85% of the time, I am playing Scrabble or linking to comics, letting myself be distracted from real life, so I don't have to think. On the other hand, writing, journaling, blogging, is cathartic. It's the exact opposite of distraction because here I am forced to think, and that exercise is good, it's what I need.

This has been a dessert summer for me. I've talked about my depression many times in this blog, but this summer I may have been hit with one of the biggest episodes I've had since after having my first child, when PPD slammed into me so hard I didn't even know who I was or what or who I wanted to be.

I had a miscarriage at the beginning of this summer. Yes, that is sad. I am okay with that though, I am completely resigned to always allowing the Lord's will to reign my life, so that is okay. But what happened was, after discovering I was pregnant I had to change my depression meds - strike 1. I also had to change my sleep meds from an anti-anxiety that just stopped my racing thoughts at night, to an actual sleep aid, which causes lethargy and depression, but does bring blissful, uninterrupted sleep ( a rarity in my life) - strike 2. Then the hormones hit. First the pregnancy ones and then the miscarriage ones - strike 3. I was out. Down and out. On top of that, some other personal events went on in our family life (since those involve others I'll not be more specific). Even my kids were saying this was the worse summer ever.

Then, I lost God. He didn't lose me, I felt that keenly, but I lost Him. And I couldn't figure out how to get back. I wanted to. My soul leaned in the Lord's direction so hard it was painful. It still is. I'm still crawling out of this hole, which is two steps forward, one step back. But I couldn't pray. Intellectually I wanted to pray. I knew I needed to pray. I mean I still talked to God, but I wasn't listening. I couldn't listen. I didn't (don't) know how to stop the constant patter in my head enough to be quiet. I talk about the Lord all day, and I babble at Him, but I never stop to hear what He has to say or to even find out what subject He would like to discuss. I'm the head of His fan club, but I don't even know Him.

My soul knows Him though. My soul has been in His presence enough times to know it wanted to get back there. Like I said, at time the sensation is physically painful, and certainly emotionally painful. How is that? How can getting back to someone you love so much, and someone that you are confident loves you even more, be so painful? How can it hurt so much you have to crawl and take breaks to curl up in a ball and cry?

I have been so thankful for this pain though. There was a time in my life when my soul was dying. I was killing it. If the wages of sin are death, and the Lord has assured us it is, then each sin is a nail in the coffin of your soul. You are killing it. And believe me, mine was a shadow of life, hanging on for all it was worth. It leaned towards God then too, but was so far away it was merely a distraction. Thank you Jesus, thank you my Mother, Our Lady, for bringing me gently back, and thank you Father for forgiving my sins and healing me. I know I am healed because now the loss of God is so agonizing.

Well, anyway, I am getting better. Now instead of two steps and one back, it's like five steps and one back. And I am praying again and sitting quietly with the Lord again, letting Him do the talking. Usually. I still run and hide too. That's part of depression, desperately wanting help and desperately wanting to get away from help too. It's such a selfish disease. Those of you who are reading by this and have been praying for me the whole time - God bless you. You are my life line. I don't know what I would do without all of my beautiful, faithful, prayer warrior friends. Even in the pit I felt the grace the Lord poured down in answer to your prayers. Even in a pit one can feel the rain. Everyone else, could you pray for me too? I pray for grace and blessings for all who pass by this blog and read these words.

St. Dymphna, pray for those afflicted with depression and other mental illnesses that magnify our separation from God. A good priest told me once that there are two kinds of people in the world - those who suffer from depression, and those who know they suffer from depression. For that is what depression is - separation from God, the result of our fallen nature, the result of original sin. Some day there will be a new Heaven on Earth and depression will exist no longer. Pray for us all, that all souls will breach the gap, and will come to the Lord before the end of time.

Know It All

I think I have a serious problem. It's called Need-to-know-it-all-itis. Or something like that. I have this need to know everything, and I literally mean everything. I have to read everything, watch everything, talk about everything, know everybody.... I have books piled up all over the place, some half started, others waiting rather impatiently. I have magazines dog-eared and I've highlighted the articles that I still need to get to. Cookbooks line my shelves and recipe clippings are mounded up in two folders and several zip lock bags (I stopped having time to put them in folders much less cook them!). E-mails in my inbox are flagged and I have TV-shows backed up for weeks on my DVR - especially the documentary-type ones. I can't bring myself to erase those. I've joined every group I can find on Facebook - particularly if they are Catholic, pro-life, and/or political, and accepted nearly every friend request. I am constantly inviting people over for coffee just so we can "chat". I hang around the parking lot at school after dropping my kids off so I can catch up with the other moms. I belong to 2 book clubs, 3 committees at church (and I chair 2 of them), the Parent/Teacher Organization at school, 2 faith sharing groups, and I volunteer at the school every Monday. I don't do any of these things well and I can't keep up with half of it. Even if I didn't have 5 young kids, a husband, a cat and a house to take care of, I still wouldn't have time. But I LOVE it! I can't imagine what I would drop. I would feel like I was totally missing something. Even funnier is that I barely retain any of it. I constantly find myself in conversations where my contribution goes like this: "I read something about that. I think the guy said something like blah blah blah, wait, no, no, no, that was the guy on TV, the guy in the article said blah blah, but I don't remember if I saw that on Facebook or Fox news or News of the Weird." It's pathetic. I wish someone would just invent a way to download info straight to your brain so, like, you could just scan your finger over the book, screen, newspaper, and it would go directly into your brain and you would know it all. Anyone else have this problem or am I the only victim of this terrible disease? Maybe I should go look it up on WebMd....

Update: I forgot to talk about all the Podcasts I download on my iPod and all the movies queued up in my Netflix queue. Sigh....

Feminine dress, Modesty, and Our Lady of Fatima

Funny, I have been thinking about blogging about this topic for awhile now, especially in the last two weeks, and then woke up this morning and feeling like I should really write about it today. Then I saw that today was the feast of Our Lady of Fatima and, wow! No wonder!

So, well over a year ago I started feeling sort of called (for lack of a better word) to dress more femininely. I think it started around the same time I decided to start covering at Mass because I was reading a lot about a woman’s hair being her glory and I became convicted that long hair was pleasing to the Lord because it is more feminine (no offense to those with short hair, this is just me working stuff out in my own head, my personal relationship with God). So that naturally lead to me thinking about dressing more femininely, wearing skirts and dresses, longer hair, etc. Then, just as I began thinking about that, a Facebook friend found this website and was wondering what we all thought of it. Well, I was blown away because it was so in line with what I had been thinking about, but it’s so hard to do! I mean, who has money to run out and change their whole wardrobe?

Fast forward a year, the dress thing has not left my mind and I started trying to incorporate more skirts and dresses into my wardrobe, but slowly. Then, another friend from my group, posts a question about dress because she has found the exact same link!!!! To me, that’s a sign. So I did what I thought I couldn't do before – ran out and bought a whole new wardrobe. Lol! Not really, but I did buy some basics. It’s awesome to see that long skirts are in this season because I was able to find some nice things on sale.

It’s only been about 2 weeks or so since I started wearing dresses every day, but it feels so natural, and when I tried to wear some old jeans to do some house work recently, it felt weird. I haven’t been able to follow Padre Pio’s standards of 8” below the knee on every dress, but they all go at least to my knees, obviously nothing is mini. And I can’t get away from a tank top completely, some of the things I bought have a tank shape to the top, but I bought a loose-knit short-sleeved sweater to wear over top and that seems to work. I can’t go with arms covered to the elbows either, it just gets way to muggy where I am in the summer.

I wouldn’t really say this is something everyone should be doing. I mean the Church isn’t talking about it and I just don’t know if I am satisfied with the answer that this article gives to that. I mean, it’s hard to believe that the Church stopped talking about women and men’s appropriate dress just because people stopped listening – I mean people stopped listening about contraception too, but thank God the Church hasn’t stopped talking about that!!

For me I think this is just a personal calling, just something to help me grow closer to the Lord and to show Him my love and humility in this way. I’ve always loved what Blessed John Paul II had to teach us in his Thelogy of the Body and I think this goes with that, the masculine and the feminine being complimentary. And because I feel it is just between me and God I originally thought that I wouldn’t necessarily make my girls dress this way. But after two weeks of wearing dresses and loving it so much, really feeling it is the right thing to do, I changed my mind and decided to drag my girls along with me. So now I have them in dresses and skorts each day – it really helped that Kohl’s had a skort and t-shirt mix and match sale for $5 a piece! Lol! I don’t know if my girls will keep it up as they get older and I don’t know how I will react if they decide they want to wear pants. I am thinking it will be pretty far down the road because they are only 4 and 2 now so I have quite a few years of influence ahead of me.

You know, the fact that I felt so strongly about wanting to share this with you all this morning and it turns out it is Our Lady of Fatima’s feast day – well, to me that says that God is pleased. And I am so so happy about that!!

I've been de-cluttering a lot lately and it has had a huge impact on my ability to keep my house tidy. That means it is easier and my house is actually kind of tidy. lol! But I still have a ways to go. A friend just shared this post from The Legacy of Home blog with me. Sounds like a plan!! Wanna try it?

My trip to New Orleans

I went to New Orleans last week - the first trip my husband and I have taken without the kids since our honeymoon 12 years ago! It was a business trip for him, but he did have a lot of free time which was fun. I enjoyed the alone time shopping anyway; it's never fun to bring a hubby shopping you know? Even if he is patient, you just know he's not into it.

There were several highlights for me in New Orleans. We went to daily Mass each morning in the beautiful St. Louis Cathedral and Basilica right in Jackson square. Loved it!

And then after Mass each day, we just walked across the square and had breakfast at the famous Cafe du Monde. REALLY loved it!!

Another highlight for me was meeting my dear friend Lisa in person! She is someone I have known for a few years now from my online group Catholic Women Together, but this is the first time we met in person. She and her husband and son drove for nearly 3 hours to New Orleans to meet me and my husband - Thanks Lisa!!!!!! We all went for a river cruise on the Mississippi on an old Steamboat. Despite the unusually cool weather it was a wonderful day! Our families got along great, just like I knew we would, and it was just so good getting to know them better.

The one negative thing about New Orleans, and I'm sure this won't surprise you, is Bourbon Street. Actually, I really thought I knew what I was getting into when we decided to walk down Bourbon. I mean, I've been around and I have seen some stuff, I really have, I used to live in downtown Baltimore for Pete's sake, but I had never actually experienced the pit of Hell until I walked down Bourbon Street. What was truly shocking for me was not so much the drinking (expected that) or the strip clubs (expected that) or even the sex clubs - yes sex!! clubs (did not expect that, but wasn't surprised) - what was truly shocking was that it was the same at 3:00 in the afternoon as it was at 3:00 in the morning! Everywhere else I've ever been, the light has chased the sin into the shadows. It still goes on but it hide behinds closed doors and waits for the dark. But not on Bourbon Street. And now I know the smell of immorality. Yes, it has an actual smell. I am pretty sure that it is exactly what Hell smells like. Really.

Two incidents have stayed with me. One was the family we saw panhandling with their toddler girl (probably 2 maybe 3 years old). I stopped to give them money, but I didn't ask their names. I have made it my habit in the last year to ask homeless people their names so I can pray for them. I try to even hold their hand and look in their eyes. But I am sad to say that I was intimidated by being with a group of people I don't know that well (my husband's co-workers) and I didn't ask. That has haunted me since I made the conscious decision to walk away. The other incident is similar. Walking down the street I saw in the doorway of a club a very sad looking woman dressed in the outfit of a dominatrix doing a little jiggley dance to attract customers. Next to her was a man, totally indifferent to her plight, holding a sign that said (please forgive my bluntness) "Tits and Whiskey". I had an urge to go ask her name, and hold her hand, but again, I let my fear of embarrassment override this command (it felt like that - an internal command) and I averted my eyes and walked away. I felt like I failed her. I can't get it out of my mind. But I know we can waste time on regret, we have to move forward, so I have taken these people to Mass with me since then, and I have kept them in my prayers.

On Bourbon Street there is a world of misery. Sex/strip clubs advertise "barely legal" teens girls and there must be hundreds of them there. Teens, older women, it doesn't matter, all I know is it means that there are hundreds of abused, addicted, demoralized women there, having their dignity stripped from them every day. Their customers too are stripped of all dignity. Everyone is drunk or on drugs, or both, and completely enslaved to sin and lack of self control. In that town, right there with that beautiful Cathedral, voo doo is being hawked, magick is being cast, and people are being enslaved and sold for the "pleasure" of others. We have to pray for that city!! Please keep them all in your prayers.

But at the same time, I saw the beautiful side. The wonderful faithful Catholics at Mass each morning, I particularly noticed several law enforcement officers there - they really need it in that town. I can't imagine being a policeman/woman in that town without the Eucharist each day! And I had lovely conversations in outdoor cafes and in shops. It really is a beautiful city, but I am haunted, just haunted by what I saw on that street. So please keep the city of New Orleans in your prayers.

Okay, I hate ending this on a downer because, overall, I had a great time. I actually recommend New Orleans as a destination spot - just not Bourbon Street. Really, it is a fabulous and beautiful city. And of course, it was awesome being with just my husband for the first time in over a decade!

We were running late for school the other morning. We have that one kid, you may have one too, who is always the slow poke. Everyone else will hustle and be totally ready, sitting in the car, and this kid is still tying shoes, staring out the window, playing with a toy one more time.... And so some mornings, not proud of how many, I will just lose my patience and start in. "You are always making everyone late! It's not fair to the others. They get everything done on time but they still get marked tardy because of you..." and on and on.

When we got to school I met one of my other children's teachers in the hallway. I took the opportunity to apologize. "I am so sorry this one was late again, it's really his brother who makes him late. This one is always ready and I'm sorry that he is tardy all the time..." and then I started going into how the other brother makes everyone late and that I had already "yelled" at him about it this morning. Well she looked at me and said, in the nicest way, "maybe you need to give that one a hug next time. Sometimes the one we feel the least like hugging is the one we need to hug the most." I stopped dead in my tracks. I realized she was completely right and so I went back to that one's classroom and called him out and gave him a hug.

But then I kept thinking about it and I decided, this is true of the whole world. I think when we look at the people that come and go in our lives, even the ones on the fringe, maybe especially the ones on the fringe, I think the ones we feel least like reaching out to are probably the ones we need to reach out to the most. I am going to try to keep this in mind every day and try to live this way every day from now on. Won't be easy, won't even be easy within my own family, but this is exactly what God's grace is for. To help us love the ones we least want to love.

Can't sleep. Love this song, can't stop listening to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTEflVwBhBk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Sent from my iPod

Okay, so I did it! Hit snooze once, but up at 6:09. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I will forgive myself 9 minutes and consider it a win. :-)

So I'm praying this morning and, does this ever happen to you? Do you ever meditate on Jesus, or on the faith, and then something you already know just hits you? I mean, something you know intellectually, but now it just hits your heart? Well I'm thinking about the Passion this morning and, at first, this terrible thought creeps in my head that lots of innocent people have been tortured and killed. Maybe even a few endured it out of love. I didn't go so far as to think, what's the big deal about the Passion, but I was headed down that line of thinking to be completely honest. And then it hit me, again something I know, but it hit me in my soul; this Is God who allowed himself to be tortured and killed for love of us. Creator of the whole Universe and everything in it. So, number 1, obviously He did not have to endure it. Yes, other humans have been unjustly tortured, and may have even borne it for love of others, but they had no power to stop it. Jesus had that power if He had desired to use it. Smiting would be pretty easy for Him you know? But He didnt!

Number 2, think of how extra horrifying it is when we hear of someone killing their own family, particularly their own mother or father. All murder upsets us obviously, but there is something extra unsettling about matricide or patricide. And here, man did not just kill our own father, but again, the creator of the Universe! Literally, the father of everything! If patricide is horrifying, how mind boggling is Deicide??? And yet the Lord not only allowed Himself to be treated in this cruel fashion, He turned it around and made the ultimate good come of it - our salvation! He took the most heinous act one could think of - the murder of our own GOD - and used it to save us!!!! Holy cow!

You probably think I'm crazy, because of course we all know this, but this morning I really felt it. Thank you Jesus. What can anyone say to that? How do you repay it? You can't, He doesn't even expect you to, other than to Love Him with all your heart, by keeping His commandments, always choosing the good, and loving others as you love yourself. That's it. Small price to pay really. I mean, why is it so hard to get up at 6:00 am when He did all that, and I only have give up an hour of sleep for 40 days, of my own choosing, just to help me grow closer to Him. No big whoop right?

Ugh, I am really messing up this Lent. I decided to give up an hour of sleep by getting up early and using the extra time to do the Divine Office. So far I've only done it truly successfully 3 times. The rest of the time I'm waking up, praying, and then going back to sleep for 1/2 an hour. A couple of times I even overslept! At least once I just failed completely by hitting the snooze button for an hour. And so what did I do today? I took a nap. Now it's nearly midnight and I am wide awake. What are the chances of me getting up in 6 hours? I know sacrifice is the whole point but why did I pick sleep? It's so haaaaarrrd! I hope you are all having a far more successful Lent then I am. I'm really going to use all my will to get up tomorrow. Good night!

Praying for the Clouse family today

I am praying for the Clouse family today. I cannot imagine burying 7 children. If you did not hear about this tragedy, you can Google "Clouse fire" and read any number of stories about it, but basically this hardworking dairy farm family lost 7 children, ranging in age from 11 years - 9 months old, in a house fire last week. Today is the funeral. There was a rumor for awhile that those hateful people from the Westboro Baptist Church were going to be there to protest (protest what I cannot imagine), but it seems that they are not expected after all. I am sending my Guardian Angel to be with the Clouse family, who will need all of the intercessory prayer they can get, and just in case the WBC show up anyway, he will be armed and ready for battle. Please join me in praying for the Clouse family and consider sending your Angels too. My heart is just breaking over this tragedy.

This time change is killing me.

Does it still count as a Lenten sacrifice if I woke up at 6:00 am but I'm still laying in bed at 7:30 playing on my iPod?

Sent from my iPod

Lenten Sacrifices

So what's everyone giving up for Lent? I think I am going to try giving up, drum roll please,...............hitting the snooze button! Yes, I am FINALLY going to get up at 6:00 a.m. And I am going to use the extra time to start doing the Divine Office again. I actually did that pretty regularly for awhile, but it went the same way my working out at the gym went. I'll have to get back to that one of these days too, but one sacrifice at a time here. Tomorrow morning is my last day, for 40 days, of sleeping to that late late hour of 7:00 a.m. And now that I have announced it cyberly I am going to have to own it. I'd love to hear your plans!

Work Break

So I've been working the front desk at my kids' school (voluntary position) on Mondays. And I have to say, and I would have never thought this about myself, but I have discovered that I actually missed working! It's been a real blast from the past; drinking coffee, chatting with coworkers, making copies, chatting with visitors, stuffing a folder or two, chatting, more coffee....

Did I mention that chatting and drinking coffee are really my skill set? Back many, many, MANY years ago, when I had a first name and wasn't just "mom", I used to work. Well, I used to be employed. Working was avoided at all costs. (Did I ever mention that I am really lazy? Oh yeah, a few posts down. Good. So you're not surprised). I always went for the positions that had either "Assistant" or "Admin" in the title because those are code words for chatting and drinking coffee. I'm sorry if I've offended some Admins and Assistants, this was back in the 1980's and 90's when the whole world was different.

Anyway, yeah, I was a true expert, with years of experience, at leaning up against my coworkers' desks and chatting. Also lunch. Lunch was a forte as well. And organizing Happy Hour. I spent a lot of time and company resources (phone, email, sticky notes) organizing Happy Hours. So when I saw that the school was looking for a volunteer to sit at the door and let people in, I knew that I could offer them some true expertise in the field.

All joking aside, it really is nice to dress up in the morning, head into an office, and work. I'm really enjoying it. And that surprises me, since my lifetime goal from the time I was about 4, was to be a stay home mom and not work. Little did I know how much WORK that actually involves! Thinking about it, I guess I'm not really enjoying the work; I'm enjoying the break!

New Live Action 30 second spot to defund Planned Parenthood

Go to http://exposeplannedparenthood.net/ and http://plannedparenthoodcorruption.org/ to find out how you can help expose the corruption, lawbreaking, and lying at America's largest abortion chain.

Don't get discouraged

I was feeling discouraged yesterday. I was thinking about abortion, about the same-sex marriage thing which is pretty much a done deal here in Maryland, about some things going on in my own Catholic community....just feeling real discouraged. And I thought, Satan must have a field day with this stuff. He must just laugh his head off all day long. But then a voice in my heart said, Ah, but he cries every time the Host is consecrated and Jesus is made present on earth in the Eucharist! And I realized, wow, and this happens, like, 24/7 around the world really!! Isn't Jesus being made present pretty much every hour of 24 hours of the earth's rotation? So let's never feel discouraged and never forget, we may still be fighting the battle, and it's a real battle yes, but the war has already been won.

Contact Your Senators today!

Incredible news! The US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly yesterday afternoon to strip Planned Parenthood of all Federal funding. As wonderful as this news is, it is, unfortunately, no time to celebrate and certainly not to sit on our laurels. The Senate is still Democrat-run and Obama has already vowed to veto the Pence Amendment. So please call, write, and e-mail your Senators. Let them know that it makes NO SENSE to give taxpayer dollars to an organization that makes billions of dollars on it's own. Planned Parenthood is the largest recipient of federal funds under Title X - over $300 million dollars a year - despite having a billion dollar budget of their own. Let your Senators know that you do not want your hard earned tax dollars funding the killing of innocent human beings!!!

Book Review: "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption"

Okay, so I've never written a book review in my life and, truly, I am not sure I will be any good at it. I will probably resort to some combination of my own exuberance, rephrasing reviews I've read, and outright plagiarism (well, hopefully not). But I have to tell everyone about this book because it is one of the most amazing stories I have ever read - and it's all true!

I am talking about "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption", by "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" author Laura Hillenbrand. If you've read "Seabiscuit" then you already know that Ms. Hillenbrand has an amazing talent for shaping a world long gone, so that it is so physically and sensibly real to the reader, one can truly feel like they are right there in the middle of the story. And this is some story.

Growing up in depression-era California Louie Zamperini went from juvenile delinquent, to Olympic track runner, to Army Air Corps bombardier in the Pacific theater during World War II. He saw ferocious combat, even surviving an air battle that left his plane with over 600 holes in it and a crash landing. Eventually his luck caught up with him and his plane went down, leaving him and two of his crew mates stranded in a tiny life raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Incredibly, he and one other man survive (one died on the raft), drifting thousands of miles for weeks on end, battling sharks and dodging enemy bullets. They finally land only to find themselves paraded through a series of Japanese POW camps, the likes of which rivaled the Nazi Holocaust camps in cruelty, surpassed only by the numbers killed (millions in the case of the Germans, hundreds of thousands in the case of Japanese POWs). In fact, American POWs under Hitler fared far better than their Japanese counterparts despite the extreme Nazi cruelty towards the Jews. For the first time in my life I finally truly understood why my father-in-law (who served in WWII) refused to buy a Japanese car, and I am grateful that I have not owned one myself in years because I would have felt compelled to get rid of it after reading this story. Nothing against it if you have one, I am just telling you that this book is that powerful.

For me the most amazing part of this story, a story that is chock full of amazing parts, is Zamperini's eventual conversion to Christianity and the total healing he found in the life of Christ and what a testament to forgiveness Louie is. He's also undoubtedly one of the most inspiring and amazing persons you will ever meet in the pages of a book. And it is all true. I don't think anyone could make this stuff up if they tried. The drama is so riveting that I tore through all 496 pages in about 3 days, and though I am a pretty fast reader, I don't usually find that kind of time to read a book. But I couldn't put it down. "Unbroken" travels through heroism, inhumanity, joy, suffering, remorselessness and forgiveness in a way that will move your heart and leave you changed. I give it 5 stars.

Can a tiger change it's stripes?

How much of who we are is habit? nature? learned? innate? choice? genetics? I am the kind of person who makes the same resolutions every New Year's eve, always full of hope and determination, and never succeeds. I am one of those who jumps into Lenten sacrifices full throttle but two weeks into it I'm struggling or I've failed all together. I am one of those who go into the confessional to confess the same sins, over and over. Oh, with the grace of God I've beaten some major ones, but those little ones? Yeah, those trip me up every day. My remorse is real though, so why can't I change?

Here it is February and I am still not able to wake up at 6:00 a.m. like I resolved. I know this seems like no big deal to hear it, but it really is a big deal to me. It's at the heart of my whole problem. I am lazy. I go to bed around 9:00 every night and left to my own devices will sleep until 9:00 a.m., get up, have coffee, throw in one load of laundry and then take a nap. Of course, God knows me all too well and has therefore blessed me with many children, who force me to wake up in time to get them to school, who force me to do more than one load of laundry a week, who force me to go beyond myself. Still, I do everything half-assed.

For years now I have told myself that if I can just wake up earlier (6:00 a.m. as opposed to 7:00 a.m.) my life will be totally different. I will have time to start my day peacefully,quietly, prayerfully before the mad rush. I've tried offering it up for Lent, I've tried making it a resolution, I've set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. every morning for years. Still, I persist in waking at 7:00, or worse yet, 7:15 (from hitting "snooze", you know, 6 times as opposed to 5). And then it's a mad rush.

There is much more to my laziness than just oversleeping. I procrastinate, I take on only little tasks letting the big projects build up, worse yet I slough stuff off onto my husband that I could just as easily do myself. I order take out for dinner. I pull dirty uniforms out of the kids' hamper because I didn't get around to getting laundry done. I blog, I play on Facebook, I talk on the phone. And I've noticed, the lazier I am the more selfish I am. If my kids interrupt my e-mailing asking for a drink of something, I get all bent out of shape. What is wrong with me?

It is true that when you have small children at home it is very difficult to get large projects done. There is so much interruption and so much multi-tasking and so much of having to leave a project unfinished that I know a lot of moms like me who just don't even bother to start them. Some of that is an excuse, some of that is honestly a learned defense mechanism. So I often wonder, how much of my laziness is learned? I've always been lazy it's true, always an underachiever. In high school I once skipped doing a research paper completely because I figured out that with my average currently being an "A", an "F" on the paper would just bring me down to a "C", and that was good enough for me. But in my 20's I managed to keep a tidy apartment, cook healthy meals for myself, hold down a job, and achieve the National Honors Society in college, graduating summa cum laude. So, it's not that I can't do it, I just don't. I think. I mean, taking care of only one person is a lot easier and there was definitely a lot of down time.

Maybe I am making too much of my laziness. I mean, in the end, things do manage to get done. My house is mostly clean, the laundry is mostly done, dinner is mostly home made. I am raising good kids who eat healthy, get good grades and say their prayers every night. Of course I could do better. My kids tend to walk all over me and I have to tell them to do everything 20 times because I'm not a very good disciplinarian - I'm too lazy to follow through. Maybe I am making too much of it, but sloth is a sin, and certainly when it leads to selfishness and impatience it's a sin.

Can a tiger change it's stripes? How much of this is just the way I am and how much of it is habit? There is a song by Switchfoot called "This is Your Life". The words say, "This is your life, are you who you wanna be?" and every time I hear it I think, "not really." I want to be a person who rises early, starts the day with a coffee and the Bible, then patiently helps her kids get out the door to school. I want to come home and mop floors, clean out cabinets and closets, plan dinners, and spends the afternoon in prayer and study, not napping. Can I change? At what point do I decide to stop trying and just love myself? And why can't I just get up at 6 o'clock in the morning?

Celebrating (a bit undeservedly but what the heck!)

I had some wine with dinner tonight to celebrate my triumphant return to blogging. Well earlier I had some wine and that was when I convinced myself that my return is in any remote way triumphant, but once I got going I really enjoyed the moment. I think I may have some dessert too. If this is the reward you just try to stop me from posting!

Sent from my iPod

New Look

I've missed blogging. So sad that I have been too busy to blog, or maybe just too lazy, because I really do enjoy writing when I sit down and just do it. Of course, in the last 1/2 hour, while I've been playing with the look of my blog, I have been reminded several times WHY it is that I don't spend time doing this. In the course of 30 minutes my little girls (ages 4 and 2) have managed to cut their hair with scissors, lose all of their brother's robot pieces (where the heck could they have put them?!), and get into a big mud pile outside only 30 seconds after sending them out there. Sigh.

Anyway, I thought about jump starting my blogging by scrapping this whole blog and starting a new one, but to be honest, I could't think of a new name. I swear, it probably took me 2 weeks to come up with "A Blessed Life" 3 years ago, and that title isn't even that great! So then I decided I would just play with the layout and see how that goes. It's a little busy, but I like the 3 columns because I am thinking of adding a reading list to my sidebar - what I'm currently reading and what I've just read. I would love for everyone to share what they are reading too. Other than my family, praying, and playing on Facebook, reading is the only activity I really enjoy, so I've decided I want to incorporate it into my blogging somehow.

Okay, so look for new posts, I promise (again) that I will be posting more often. Now I have to go rescue the cat...

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