Not Holy Enough

I was hugely pregnant, trapped in an MRI machine while they scanned our baby to see if the large mass in her lung was life-threatening or not. The "calming" ocean sounds they piped in through the ear buds didn't do a thing to mask the loud beeps & clunks emanating from the machine. I'm not generally claustrophobic, but being stuck in such a small space certainly made me feel like it.

The Best Vocation (Be a Saint!)

It's Good Shepherd Sunday, and by an accident of circumstances we ended up going to a different Mass than usual, and I'm glad we did! Today especially we pray for vocations, and Father discussed what that really means in his homily, which echoed a lot of the sentiments I feel when it comes to my children and their vocations.

I went about it all wrong at first, I think. Our oldest has always had a keen interest in the liturgy, and started "playing" Mass at a very young age. We encouraged this, talking about how he would be a priest when he grew up, and maybe even a bishop! Or a pope! I hated when he got older and expressed a desire to get married... My little priest! By golly, we're a Good Catholic Family and we're going to show it by having THE MOST VOCATIONS TO THE RELIGIOUS LIFE!!!

Oh wait.

That's not the point of vocations.

7 Reasons to Start a Garden!

Well, if it ever warms up, we'll be in the swing of things for garden season! People keep asking what we're planting this year, and I think it might be better for me to tell them what we *aren't* planting... We aren't planting: sweet potatoes, turnips, or kohlrabi. There are probably other things too, but not many!

I find gardening really fulfilling, and I think it's something anyone can do, even if you think you have a black thumb. Here are 7 reasons why:

Book Stacks: Volume 1

Goodreads just emailed me congratulating me on my progress towards my 2018 reading goal, and I was surprised to see I had read 15 books already this year! Then I realized that I was about to finish two more, and that two others hadn't gotten counted... So 19 books so far! I figured we're a third of the way through the year, so it might be worth sharing what I've read (and what the kids have read) and enjoyed so far, because doing just one big summary at the end of the year means I won't remember anything I read at the beginning...

We'll see how frequent these "Book Stacks" posts become, but I think it'll be a good way to organize what we're reading! So without further adieu... Here's what we've read!

15/52: National Siblings Day

7 Quick Takes on the State of the Blog

You wanted to see how we decorate for different liturgical seasons... We don't do much. We clean off the buffet that was covered with junk for the past month, though!

--1--

First of all, THANK YOU to those of you who filled out the reader survey that I posted! Your responses are super-helpful - I know a lot of people read without commenting (which is totally fine! It's so hard to find time to comment, so I totally get it), which often means I don't really know what posts people actually find interesting and which ones are total flops.

For instance: My "Week by Week" posts seem to be statistically the ones that people enjoy reading the most, but they get far fewer views than, pretty much any other posts, which made me think nobody cared (although I didn't care about that, because they're the posts my kids will be interested to look back on).

Anyway, lots of people said they wished I would write more about homesteading & homeschooling & teaching the kids about the faith. And one reason I don't write much on those is...

14/52: Easter-ing

13/52: Holy Week Penance

My Sunday Best, Volume 100: Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! He is risen, alleluia!

And happy final weekly edition of My Sunday Best—it's been fun! Maybe I'll replace it with a different weekly link-up? We'll see.