What a Week!!

 

I took this last week off just to take a week off with nothing to do, much...

 

My Hunter man.

This was last weekend, Hunter and I spent some time together stacking our last load of wood for the winter. 

He is so smart it scares me a little. We had a long conversation about energy.  He really knows a lot about it, and is fascinated by nuclear energy.  We talked about renewable energy sources, fuels, and what the future of energy will be.  I should say HE talked about, I just listened and tried to come up with good questions.  (Although I knew I was completely out smarted)  Now I'm not positive, but I'm pretty certain that he didn't learn all about it in school.  He has taken his own time to learn it.  Those summer days when he is home, he isn't just playing Minecraft, he is actually learning about things he finds interesting.  His future looks so bright, I might just have to wear shades... :)

Oh yeah, and an interesting gem he found out recently, Pope Frances was actually a Chemist before becoming a priest.  Hunter thought that was pretty cool.

I had a hair appointment on Wednesday to get a cut and all of my gray covered up.  Those of you who have seen me recently will agree, it was getting pretty bad.

Ohhh how I hate selfies

And then the most exciting, nerve racking thing happened,  I received an email from Sirius XM's The Catholic Channel about doing an interview with Gus Lloyd about my conversion story!  I was so surprised, it took me a little while to respond.  I mean really, I'm not sure my story is that interesting, but you never know what will capture someone's attention and maybe the simple stories are good for people to hear too. 

Anyway, emails back and forth and it has been settled that I will be doing the interview on Monday morning at 8:00 am EST.  I'm nervous as can be, but with a lot of support and prayers, I will make it through.  So please, send up your prayers for my peace and confidence and that the Holy Spirit works through me on Monday.

Thursday was a lazy day at home, but I got to spend it with my daughter Kayla.  That rarely happens anymore, but it was really nice.  She cracks me up...that kid can talk.

One last thing...you may have seen my post about the Matthew Kelly talk I attended a couple weeks ago.  I recently came into possession of an extra copy of his book "The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic".  So I would like to give it away to one of my blog readers.  I know I don't have much of a following yet, but I would really like to share the wealth a little bit. 

So if you are interested in winning this book, please leave me a comment below.  I will leave it open until the end of November and then draw a lucky winner.

My goal for this week was to get rested up.  There is so much going on in healthcare lately that I really needed to get some time away so that I could rest and prepare to jump back in refreshed and whole heartedly give it all my best.  I believe I have accomplished that.

Thanks for stopping by!!

7 Quick Takes Friday: Great Posts edition

I've been accumulating these links for a little while now to share with you.  There really are some great people posting great stuff out there in the big ol' world wide web.  Please enjoy!!





 

--- 1 ---

This author expresses so many of my same feelings about the Catholic Church.  It is worth a couple minutes of your time.  Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  Click here!
 

--- 2 ---

This piece is a great example of what I feel is needed in the Church today.  I would love to see more cradle Catholics be able to express their faith the way this author has.  But it takes work, I would love to figure out how to help others learn more about this beautiful, full faith that we have.  Click here!

--- 3 ---

This is a great piece that will give hope for young men today.  Click here!

--- 4 ---

I had written a little post a couple weeks ago about some questions some cradle Catholics had about my protestant upbringing.  One of them was about the authority they use.  Then a couple days later, I came across this blog post with a video by Fr. Robert Barron on the same topic.  Here it is!

--- 5 ---

This is pretty interesting.  The author demonstrates twelve traits that show us the true church.  Click here!

--- 6 ---

If you have ever wondered about your prayer life, this is a great blog post that should give you some encouragement.  Click here!

--- 7 ---

 

Leila at Little Catholic Bubble recently posted this about how people come to God.  As a very intellectual person, she tended to think that people come to God through truth, however it is more usual for people to come to God through love.  Click here!

 

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

My Bookshelves

I saw this great link-up on Modern Mrs. Darcy. If you haven't stumbled on this blog yet and you are a reader, I would recommend you go and get to know Anne. She's a sweetheart and cute as can be.

Anyway, she is doing a link-up of other peoples bookshelves. It can be really fascinating what others are reading, and it is a great way to get some good ideas about what to read next. 

I have several bookshelves in my house and often have a stack of books on the coffee table.  I also have many books on my Kindle.  Often when I hear about a book I want to read I download the sample on my Kindle.  Then I don't forget about it and I don't have to buy until I am ready to read it.

You might be able to tell by the books that these first several pictures are my bookshelf.



These are a couple stacks that I pulled out lately to read.



 And then these are the ones I have loaded on my Kindle:

 The books on this bookshelf are my husbands, but the bookshelf is mine.  It was always in our house growing up and I love it.  It also fits his small paperbacks really well.  He mostly reads soldier books or westerns.



This one is mostly my husbands hardcover books, but some Life "Year in Pictures" books we have collected.

 And this last one is a catch all of miscellaneous books, but includes a lot of the kids favorite books that I didn't want to get rid of.

I hope you found something you like, and I can't wait to see all the other linkers' bookshelves.

The Halloween Tree

 

 

Have you ever seen The Halloween Tree?  Or have you ever read it? 

 

Originally, it is a book by Ray Bradbury, however Hanna-Barbera made it into an animated film.

 

It's my favorite Halloween movie.  In fact it's one of my favorite movies, period.

 

I discovered it many years ago sitting in the emergency room waiting area at the Army hospital.  Kayla was a month and a half old and John was having some sort of stomach pain (If I remember right) which prompted our visit to the ER.

 

The Cartoon Network was on the TV and this movie was playing.

 

It captured my attention and then my heart.

 

Its a story of friendship and of love. With some Halloween history thrown in.

 

It's the story of five friends who are taken on the adventure of a lifetime.

 

It is Halloween night and each friend is dressed for the occasion.  Tom as a skeleton, Ralph as a mummy, Wally as a monster, and Jenny as a witch.

 

Four of the friends are chasing the spirit of the fifth friend, Pip, after they discover that he might be on his death bed with appendicitis. 

 

They follow him to a huge old mansion and meet Moundshroud who has an ulterior motive to help the four friends find Pip.  Moundshroud wants to capture his spirit in one of the pumpkins on his pumpkin tree. 

 

Pip's spirit has stolen the pumpkin and escaped to the past, four thousand Halloweens past.

 

Moundshroud asks them why they are dressed the way they are dressed.  They can't answer and so he initiates the chase for Pip and telling them they need to visit the old country to find out why they dress as skeletons, mummies, monsters, and witches.

 

The adventure begins as they fly through the air. 

 

They land in Egypt and see the spirits trying to get into the houses on the feast of ghosts.  They end up in a pyramid as the natives begin to mummify Pip.  Ralph, dressed as the mummy has to save Pip.

 

Pip is saved but flies away again.

 

This time they land in England, in the dark ages, in the middle of a broom festival.  They then get a lesson on why the witches were called witches.  The were smart, had their 'wits' about them. 

 

So Jenny, dressed as the witch, saves Pip this time.  She does and he flies away again.

 

This time they are off to the French Quarry to build Notre Dame.  Of course the Cathedral is missing the Gargoyles which have to be called by Wally, dressed as the monster.  Pip is trapped in one of the statues and only Wally can save him.

 

Pip is freed from the statue and flies away.  This time to Mexico on the Day of the Dead.

 

They see the celebrations going on but end up following Pip into the catacombs where the skeletons are.  Tom, dressed as the skeleton faces his fear for Pip saying, "If we face death eyeball to eyeball, it loses it's power over us". 

 

Pip is saved, however Moundshroud finally scoops in to capture Pip's spirit in his pumpkin.

 

The four friends had spent the evening pouring out their hearts to Pip.  About how much they need him and how supportive he is of all of them. 

 

So now they fear the worst for Pip.  Moundshroud has his spirit captured.  One at a time, they negotiate a year off the end of each of their lives to save Pip's life.

 

Moundshroud is touched by this, and it is enough to send them all flying home.

 

They arrive near Pip's house and go to see him.  Pip is alive and recovering from his appendicitis. Pip being the true friend to them is appreciative of all of their sacrifices.  They all wonder how he knew and he says he had some really great dreams while he was at the hospital.

 

The end!

 

Don't you love it?

 

 

Matthew Kelly Talk

Yesterday I attended a Matthew Kelly talk.  Have you ever heard him speak?  He does presentations all around the country and he also has many CDs and books that he has produced/written.  You can take a look around his website or there might even be some available at your local parish.

I wanted to share some of my favorite points the Matthew made during yesterday's talk.

He began talking about the qualities of people who are engaged.  The first is that they are hungry for "best practices", the second is that they are committed to continuous learning.  The got me thinking not only about my religion but also about the people who I manage.  Looking through the lens of the qualities, I can really identify the people around me who are engaged in what they are doing.  The ones who want to do the best job correctly, and constantly want to learn more.  These are the people I want to surround myself with.

Among the three areas that he talked about hearing the ordinary voice of God every day, he mentioned getting some time in the classroom of silence.  The noise of the world consumes us and we are not listening for God anymore.  The three areas where we should be listening are our legitimate needs, our talents and abilities, and our deepest desires.

One of the strongest points Matthew made that will stick with me for a long time is about what some people say about Jesus.  There's little doubt that you have heard different people and even different religions say that Jesus was only a great prophet and teacher. Here's the thing though...Jesus said he was the Son of God, so if you deny that he was the Son of God, you are saying that he was a liar.  Would you call a liar a great prophet and teacher?

Of course there were many other things that Matthew spoke about and I took a lot of notes, but these are a couple that I wanted to share.

Speaking of notes, we were given a little notebook to take notes in and on every page there were quotes and sayings by various people.  Here are some of my favorites:

“Anyone or anything that does not help you become the-best-version-of-yourself is too small for you.” ~Matthew Kelly

“Some people are going to like me and some people aren’t, so I might as well be me. Then, at least, I will know that the people who like me, like me.”  ~Hugh Prather

“The dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success.  I think you can accomplish almost anything if you’re willing to pay the price.”  ~Vince Lombardi

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: The last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances – to choose one’s own way.”  ~Victor Frankl

“The challenge life presents to each of us is to become truly ourselves – not the self we have imagined or fantasized about, not the self that our friends want us to be, not the self our ego would have us be, but the self God has ordained us to be from before we were in our mother’s womb.”  ~Matthew Kelly

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Catholic Church is So Much More

*Disclaimer: Where I refer to protestants in this post is strictly related to the experiences I had growing up in a Nazarene and then in a Southern Baptist church.  I fully know that they are not all alike.

Recently, I had a conversation with a trusted group of friends that have been there for me in my continued conversion to Catholicism.  We were talking about my background, being raised protestant, and a few things stood out to me that I hadn’t thought of from that angle before, “that angle” being how a cradle Catholic would see a protestant Christian formation.

One of the questions was what authority the protestant churches looked to.  I didn’t have an answer, but I think I didn’t have an answer because really the only authority they ever used was the bible.  The problem with that is that it is up to each denomination or worse, each individual pastor to determine the meaning of the passages in bible.  In my experience (at least not that I can remember), I was never introduced to scripture through the lens of its actual context, place in time, or its meaning in the original language it was written in. Don’t take that lightly, it makes a difference, sometimes a big difference.

This particular group of friends is very much into liturgy, I would say, more than your common cradle Catholic.  They get that a Mass is different than a church service, but I think a lot of people don’t get that.  In a church service growing up there was some good teaching, some good praying, and some great music, but it just isn’t the same as a Catholic Mass.  Obviously, the biggest reason is the Eucharist.  Actually, because the Mass Liturgy is actually two liturgies, the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, in a church service at other churches, it really is just the Liturgy of the Word part that you get.

Something else that seemed to catch their attention was things that I had to “unpack”.  For example, I grew up believing that Mary was a virgin when she conceived the Son of God. But I was taught that Mary wasn’t always a virgin and that Jesus had brothers and probably sisters.  When you have never thought about it any other way, it may be odd or even interesting to hear what others are taught.

And there are a lot of other things, a lot. 

Have you ever heard this or some variation of this?  “Being Catholic is basically the same as any other Christian” or “Catholics basically believe what Protestants believe”.

I have to admit, when I was brought into the Catholic Church, I said those sorts of things.  At the time, it was enough for me on such a basic level to believe that what I had learned growing up was what the Catholic Church taught.

Boy was I wrong.  And if you believe that the Catholic Church only teaches what any Protestant church teaches, you are wrong.

The Catholic Church is so much more.  It is depth, fullness, truth, tradition and authority, and it is so much more.  And part of the blessing of the Church is that there is so much that you can continue to grow and learn forever and never learn it all.  Thank God!

The ABC's of Me

I saw this on another blog this week and I thought it was a neat idea and that I would give a whirl.  So here goes:

A. Age - 42

B. Bed size - Queen

C. Chore that you hate - Folding socks, but if I'm being honest, sweeping the floor is the worst.

D. Dogs - One, my Sophie girl

E. Essential part of your day - Coffee, duhhh

F. Favorite Color - It depends on what we are talking about, but in general I would say red.

G. Gold or Silver - Silver

H. Height - 5' 4"

I. Instruments - I played the flute in junior high and gave the piano a try too, but I didn't stick with either of them.

J. Job title - Practice Manager, Alice Hyde Outpatient Medical Services

K. Kids - Daughter Kayla and son Hunter

L. Live - Small town, single family, three bedroom, two bath home

M. Mother's name - Michelle

N. Nicknames - Ang, Angie, Angie B.

O. Overnight hospital stays - When I was little I had really bad asthma and had to spend several extended stays in the hospital, even Christmas one year.

P. Pet peeves - I hate when people drive the wrong direction in parking lot aisles, then try to pull into the parking space from the wrong direction.

Q. Quote from a movie - I'm coming up blank, sorry.

R. Right or left handed - Righty

S. Siblings - Two sisters, Kara and Christianna

Me and my sisters in 2009

T. Time you wake up - My alarm goes off at 6:00 am on work days but I don't really wake up till several minutes later at some point in the shower.  Weekends it's a lot later.

U. Underwear - Um, yes...

V. Vegetable you hate - Asparagus, that slimy gross stuff.

W. What makes you run late - When I think I have a enough time to do one more little task.

X. X-rays you've had - Hand, wrist, knee...I think that's it.

Y. Yummy food that you make - I don't love to cook, but there are few things that I do pretty well.  Chicken enchiladas, vegetable pasta dish, cream of potato soup, and a full Thanksgiving meal.

Z. Zoo animal - My favorites are the big cats.

Did you learn anything new about me?