Weekend Wrap Up

Many thanks to all of you who have been praying for me. It's been a rather emotional two weeks for me, and so I'm thankful to have people care enough to pray. Thank you.

1. I would also like to thank God (and St. Jude and St. Joseph for their intercession!) for two prayer requests that my husband and I had. Both situations are improving greatly, and it has taken a load off of our shoulders.

2. On a completely different note (and that's why these wrap-ups are so much fun. I don't have to come up with a creative segue from one topic to the next... just slap down a new number and off I go!), have you ever listened to those old time radio shows? My dad used to have us sit around the kitchen table in the dark and listen to mysteries like "Sorry, Wrong Number," or episodes of "The Shadow" so that we could get a taste of what it was like for him when he was a little boy.

Well, my brother came to visit recently, and left us several cds of some radio shows to listen to -- "The Sealed Book" and "The Whistler." Now, I must admit that I didn't know that they were going to be kind of "Twilight Zone" sort of creepy, so I felt really bad that I played it for my kids in the car; they, however, thought it was cool and have begged to listen to them every time we have to drive somewhere.

Now, creepiness (and the appropriateness of me letting my children listen to this) aside, I must say that the interesting part of listening to them is that they are all, deep down, morality plays.  For example, in one episode, a woman was being blackmailed for a horrible secret in her past, and she just couldn't let it get out. As the story continued, I heard one of my children proclaim from the back seat, "You know, if she just went to confession, this whole thing would be over, and everything would be OK." EXACTLY! We have had the most wonderful conversations because of these shows, talking about the need for repentance, the glamor of evil, the importance of living our lives for God, and that our sins will ALWAYS find us out.

3. Scrapbooking. Finally getting started again. Maybe one of these years, I'll actually go back and fill in something about Kathryn's birth (over 10 years ago)... or any other children born since then. I've got good intentions, but it seems that either I don't have the pictures ready, or not enough pages in the albums (my problem right now), or I run out of ink in the printer. Still, I managed to do 5 2-page spreads last night, and my family enjoyed looking at them today.

My husband is so sweet. He tells me how much he appreciates the fact that I do this -- chronicle the story of our family -- either through scrapbooking or this blog. In fact, when I asked him to prioritize the things I should be doing during our summer break (only fair since I'm always doing this to him!) he listed "scrapbooking" as one of the things he'd like to see up there in the top 3.

4. Speaking of my husband, I've mentioned before how incredibly funny and creative he is. We had the best time at supper tonight, laughing over all the names and adventures that he created with the Little People. (yeah, he's one of those dads who loves to lay down on the floor and play with the kids. God love him!!) As we talked about it, ALL the kids decided that they'd love to create a new adventure with him so, after suppertime cleanup, I had 8 kids on the floor with their dad, laughing hysterically as he came up with a new storyline about a secret agent and his spy network. I couldn't even begin to describe it, so I won't, other than to say that if you knew my husband, you'd understand how completely off the wall the story was.

It's at times like this that I enjoy just sitting back and watching my family in action, and I praise God for allowing me this great privilege of being a part of all this.


May all of us have a blessed week!