Some Random Thoughts

It's been yet another crazy week here. My humble and quick attempt to get something... anything... down:

1. We had a death in the family, which caused a bunch of things that had been scheduled for months to be shifted around and/or canceled. And I find myself at my second wake/funeral mass in less than a month. Though, admittedly, this one is a happy death... not that we are happy to have lost him from our everyday lives, but he was 89 years old, had lived a long and well-loved life, and the funeral is more a celebration of his life than an anguished "why?" as my friend's funeral was.

2. One of the things that got canceled was DH's fishing trip. Since he could no longer drive 5 hours away to fish for a long weekend, he took the opportunity to drive less than 30 minutes to the Hermitage for a day and a half. It was as good for him as it was for me. Seriously, if you live a reasonable distance from St Louis, consider making the trip someday.

3. While DH was at the Hermitage, Father was there as well. (Actually, Father - being on Spring Break - was there all week). DH was able to celebrate a private mass with Father both Thursday and Friday, and to have some spiritual direction/confession. What a gift for him! It's the first time DH has experienced Father in SD and confession... and he now understands why I love Father for both of those things.

4. Speaking of spiritual direction... Father came back from the Hermitage to meet with me for an hour on Thursday night. It was exactly what I needed, in so many ways: the chance to unload a lot of the stresses living under my shoulder blades, the wisdom I was looking for, the absolution and several really helpful penances. All good stuff. What a blessing!

5. We are getting ready to go to Albuquerque for a week. We leave next Saturday... man, that really sneaked up on me! My great-Aunt lives there, and as she is getting older and her health is declining, this seemed like a good time to make the trek. In preparation for the trip, we added a fourth Nintendo DS to the family. It really doesn't do much good to have 4 children and 3 DS's... bad math. LilBro has been working really hard on remembering to use the toilet, and finally earned enough stars for that 4th DS (though, frankly, he was getting it anyway... 1,000 miles in a minivan with bad math is not a good plan!)