"Frozen" - The prequel

About ten years ago, I found a note while I was cleaning our daughter Elizabeth's bedroom. She had written down a dozen or so of her lifes goals though I can only remember one of them because I thought it was so unrealistic, dreamy and unattainable. She wrote; #8, I want to work on an academy award winning movie. I thought, geeze she's in for a lifetime of supreme disappointment and I figured that four year degree in painting pretty much sealed the deal as a tenured waitress at Denny's. Anyway, she did it, and we're super proud of her. Sometimes God's will is stunning, yet even so, he didn't make the ride any less difficult or painful for her as he pushed her onward. 

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*The above concept art pictured, was not made by Elizabeth. Our daughter's a lighter , who I like to say, "Makes the Disney magic". She worked on the snow queens ice castle and dealt with refraction issues as she made the ice reflect, sparkle, and shine. 

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 I hope God remembers I have a list as well, it's super short, only one thing listed, also surprising, but no one can find it because it's written on my heart where only God can see it

I love how this family inconveniences all of the people who surround them. Inconvenience reveals the true nature and character of the people who are being taxed. This is also how a parent acquires patience, which is a learned virtue, and not recessarly an automatic personality trait.

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If your using birth control to simplify your life and expand your resources, your making a terrible mistake, and your decisions will effect the outcome of your eternity. 

In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread, till you return to the ground; for out of it were you taken: for dust you are, and to dust shall you return.

Genesis 3:19

I've started going back to the YMCA to exercise since my kids have have returned to school and I saw my friend Stacie who was working at the front desk.  I said to her, "HI Stacie, how are you honey!?" "I haven't seen you for a while!" Her personality is always very serious and she never cracks a smile - which  makes me laugh. She said  "I'm good,"  but then she became excited and said very quickly in her usual monotone, "I've lost 18 pounds!" I said, "That's terrific, good job, how did you do it?" She said, "I exercised." I said, "Well, point to the machine you used, that's the one for me!" "It's not here, she said, I go to "Curves."

Alrighty then.

My  friend George attends the parish across town and he always likes to tell me about whats going with the Knights of Columbus. He's a proud member of the K of C and he gets particularly excited when it's Lent as he goes on to describe how he participates in their annual fish fry. George is my grocery sacker, and we chat at least once a week and have done so for many years.

Last week I bought two carts of groceries and George said he would help me to   load them into my car. I said, "It's okay, I know you have other things to do, I can do it," but he insisted, and because I was feeling my age, I relented. I parked my car in the drive-thru lane and he began to move my things but as I got out to help him, he insisted, very sweetly, "You get back in the car, I will do it, besides your going to have to put it all away."  Yeah, your right George, and I should bring you home with me, your very helpful.

Ah, thanks George, your the best!

Then when I was leaving another store, a group of special needs people began to exit their bus. Their leader was a very handsome young man who was making playful walking gestures with his hands and trying to engage the older teens and young adults with his humor. I glanced at him and shot him a smile of approval as he laughed with embarrassment when he noticed that I had been watching him act silly.  Naturally I considered him to be very saintly and felt love at first sight for this man who was apparently as gorgeous on the inside as he was on the outside.

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* "An estimated 92 percent of all women who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome choose to terminate their pregnancies, according to research reviewed by Dr.Brian Skotko, a pediatric geneticist at Children's Hospital Boston."

*Source- ABC news -Susan Donaldson James

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92 percent of these women don't know what they're missing and the world is worse off without these people.

Don't you hate it when the beautician gives you a mullet when you SPECIFICALLY said, "For the love of God, please don't give me a femullet!" What's the emoticon for crying?

I'm going to paint my toes and try to calm down. 

With over 6 billion people on the planet  and a variety of medias competing for our attention,  I'm always  flattered -  honored  really, when ever people stop by my blog to visit.  I love my blogger buddies and I pray for those 45 people who for some reason - known only to God, chose to follow my blog. 

To me, catholic bloggers fill a void of common sense, and  fidelity  that's becoming harder to find in the real world but  because we're never going to get back the time we've spent blogging together, I hope you  feel as though your time with me was also well spent. 

I'm wishing each of you an Easter season full of joy as we contemplate how it is that our savior was willing to endure such a horrible death on our behalf. How incomprehensible the gulf of of love, passion, and forgiveness he has for each and every one of us. Who could measure the depth of  his love? 

How great a wound to the Holy Spirit when he's rejected-  an  open wound that can never be replaced by another soul, what a terrible blow to the most sacred heart of Jesus especially after all that he's done for us.

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We don't have enough Catholics yet.

 “When pain overwhelms my soul, and the horizon darkens like night, and the heart is torn with the torment of suffering, Jesus Crucified, You are my strength.  When the soul, dimmed with pain, exerts itself in battle without respite, and the heart is in agony and torment, Jesus Crucified, you are the hope of my salvation.” 

 - Sr. Faustina

‎"Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you." (John 6:54)

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The interpretation of this scripture is to be taken literally and not as a figurative sort of idea or act . What Christ had said, is what Christ had meant and partaking of his flesh and blood isn't to be enjoyed as a symbolic representation of a once great man, nor as an act of celebration in remembrance for the nice work that he had accomplished on our behalf,  but as Christ - our God clearly pointed out - his flesh - his actual body was and is given up for you and I and we are expected to partake. This is the very same flesh which the foundation of our church and her beliefs rest upon and if you don't believe this then your not really Catholic.

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 After we come to understand the reality of Christ in the Eucharist, then the next questions we have to ask ourselves are, "Am I worthy to partake and if not, then how do I  make myself  fit to receive?"

 
The answer is confession and our eternal salvation depends upon it.

Ana's boyfriend, Nate, spent a few days with us for his birthday and so Ana decided to make him a cake.  Nate loves to fish so we took a baked pan of brownies and molded them into the shape of a fish, then we cut pieces of fondant to cover the brownie form which we then painted with food coloring. (We left off the fin along the top of the fish off so that the cake would fit nicely into our freezer.)

We used peanut M&M's for the eyeballs and Ana painted them to tone down the orange.

Ana doesn't know how to cook but her little sister Rose does, so Rose talked Ana through  the process of baking a chocolate cake from scratch.

We double dog dared Rose to eat the candy fondant bug in the fishes mouth which she happily had done.

 Naturally, Joseph loved the part with the fire and Sarah took a cut piece of the  "fish head"  to work with her  and  she put it on her bosses desk. What do you suppose that was all about?

 Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

 He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

 Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

 but those who hope in the LORD

will renew their strength.

- Isaiah 40:28-31

Abortion makes me cry. I wish I was in Washington D.C.today- well at least my heart is.

Why do women continue to voluntarily poison themselves?

Many of the dangers of the pill are listed on the package insert.  The statistics are startling:

• According to the Journal of American Medicine, using birth control doubles one’s risk of stroke.
• According to the National Cancer Institute one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lives.
• The National Cancer Institute estimates that in 2010, 39,840 women will die of breast cancer.  The institute also estimates that in 2010, 207,090 will be diagnosed with breast cancer.
• According to the Mayo Clinic Research, if a woman uses hormonal contraception for at least four years before her first full-term pregnancy she is at a 52% greater risk for developing breast cancer.
• According to the International Agency of Research on Cancer, if a woman uses a hormonal contraceptive for more than five years, she becomes four times more likely to develop cervical cancer.
• According to the National Cancer Institute, black women, who are between the ages of 20 and 50, are twice as likely to die of breast cancer as white women with the disease.  This is because black women are more vulnerable to “triple-negative” cancers which are more deadly.
• Breast cancer has increased 660 percent since 1973.  At the conference, Dr. Angela Lanfranchi(breast cancer surgeon) linked this increase with the use of hormonal contraception.

Defenders of the pill like to retort that hormonal contraceptives can lower the risk of ovarian and endometrial cancer.  But comparatively few women get endometrial and ovarian cancer to begin with compared to the one in eight who will get breast cancer.  The numbers are far from an even exchange.

Hormonal contraception is a carcinogenic and potent drug.  High doses of these drugs are needed to mimic pregnancy in the body and thus prevent pregnancy.  It’s not normal for the body to function with such high levels of these hormones, especially over a prolonged period of time spanning many years.

 Source

Christ waits and he waits for you alone.

Who has the right to decide who's life has value and whose does not?

Photo above; Grandma Moses.