My Weekend! :)

Okay, lots of pictures in this post, so I uploaded them small-sized. If you want to see them better, just click on them. :) Enjoy! :D

~FRIDAY~
Hmm...... I don't remember too well what all happened on Friday. I don't think it was a very eventful day as school goes. Just the usual. Fish for dinner and Rosary at the cemetery. The painting on our house progressed. I really like the front door being green now, instead of brown like it was. :) Looks homey, doesn't it? :D Joey was really glad it was Friday, I guess. :P Actually, we all were! He just expressed it for the rest of us by jumping over the little bush in the front yard. ;) In the evening, Rose and I dropped by the Mionis and then went to the clinic to do photo-copying and stuff like that. About 9 o'clock, the phone rang and it was Brittany!!!!!! How exciting! ;) I talked to her for a solid two hours. :D It was really, really good to catch up with her... we took so long talking though, that Rose abandoned me :P and said to call when I needed a ride home. Well, when 11 o'clock came around and I hadn't called yet, Mom, Rose, Joey and 8ball came down to see what was up. :) So I had to go, but she promised to call again before her All Saints' vacation was up. :)

~SATURDAY~
Early (!) on Saturday morning, Rose and Mom left for Kansas City for Mass and Rose's choir practice for the wedding she's singing in on November 19. While they were gone, I cleaned up in the kitchen, baked a cake (*ahem* ....yeah.... it was a mix) and frosted it. I spent about an hour and a half up at McCabe, cleaning up a little and taking pictures of set preparation. The sets are going to look really nice!! This is Julianna, Annie and I: Primer-ing the flats... That afternoon, Adam and Christa came over to help make pizza for a pizza (and part birthday) party that we were having later... They were a GREAT help! I couldn't have gotten it all done without them; that's a fact!!!!! (Thank you, both, so much!! :D) We made six pizzas in all.... homemade crusts and all. Yummy! :P Teamwork! ;) While waiting for everyone to arrive from the last college soccer game of the season, we took a minute to relax........ although... Rose doesn't look like she's enjoying that pipe too much!! :D We did a little bit of casual dancing and watched some Riverdance (in the meantime, Michelle had arrived and joined us in the fun. :)) ...At last, the other six showed up and dinner was soon started. People hadn't saved QUITE enough room, :) so six pizzas was a couple too many... but leftovers are really good so nobody minded. :) We said the Rosary at Sean's grave and then retired with the candy and the musical instruments :) to the basement, so Mom and Dad could watch a movie upstairs. Matt, Dave, Adam (and later Joey) entertained us on the violin, drum and guitar. It was a very enjoyable evening. 8ball got lots of attention. :P Joey playing... (after getting back from a skeet shoot). Toward the end of the evening, we went back upstairs for carrot cake and vanilla ice cream. Sarah was the birthday girl!! :D The party broke up about a quarter to 11, with half of our guests opting to walk back to the dorm and the others driving the vehicles which had been brought. :) It was an unseasonably beautiful evening... and the night in which we all fell back an hour. Dave had asked if I'd help with chalk drawings for the Christ the King procession the next day, so I went to bed relatively early so I could get up for the 6 o'clock Mass...

~SUNDAY~
Sunday came all too quickly. I got up at 5 (which fortunately still felt like 6 :D) and went to the 6 am Mass. It was amazingly full - even people standing!! - but that was because there were only three Masses instead of the usual five. Fr. Asher said Mass and his sermon on the kingship of Christ was very good! Afterwards, I met up with Jozef, Dave and Nick and we set out with only fifteen pieces of sidewalk chalk to decorate the whole route the Procession would take. Nick's masterpiece took quite some doing, I think, but it turned out VERY nicely! However, we left him behind because we had lots more yet to do. If we didn't have a lot of creativity (blame it on the early hours! ;)), we did have teamwork and the drawing went quickly. This one was done by Dave and myself in front of the only altar on the route... Dave and Jozef working together... ...it must've been pretty funny to see us rather-nicely-dressed 'vandals' going around drawing on the streets early Sunday morning!! :P I think Dave must've been licking his fingers or inhaling the chalk dust or something, because things got pretty hilarious there for awhile. :D I found it pretty humorous when Jozef and I had to stand guard on Highway 24/Bertrand so that Dave could quickly sketch a cross in the middle of the road! :) Fortunately, traffic was light. :D
The Sisters with help from some of the high school girls had prepared some fantastic saw-dust artwork!!! We got done with the chalk drawings about 9 am, so we went over to Froggy's to get coffee and a small breakfast. We sat down at a booth with Will and Larry. But then we decided that it would take too long to wait for service and we had to meet Mr. K at 9:30, so we left again... we talked with him and he told us what we needed to do with the Eucharistic Crusaders and stuff like that. On the way back to Froggy's, we met up with Michelle who was also going to help us with the Eucharistic Crusaders. This time, we did have time (and then some) for breakfast. I had a meat-lovers omelette which was scrumptious!! We were treated by Jozef. (Thank you very much, Jozef!!) When we got back to campus, we STILL had quite a bit of time to spare before Holy Communion would be over (our cue to take the Crusaders outside), so we hung out in the computer lab for awhile. At last, it was time (about noon)... We led the kids outside and arranged them in lines, four abreast. It was quite a task trying to keep them in that formation through the Procession! We were in the very front. Benediction was at the Varnados' house and then again at the college building. It took quite a while for all the faithful (there HAD to have been thousands there!) to get all the way back in the Auditorium for the conclusion of the Procession. It was really an impressive turnout. ....Must've been the promise of subsequent coffee and doughnuts! :P ....j/k! :D The rest of the afternoon was fairly relaxed. Rose and I hung out in my room and did some homework and some talking. ;) Shortly before sunset, we went out to campus to shoot some proofs for her senior pictures. There was really only one that turned out really well, because of the low lighting. I really like it! How about you? ....Dinner and a little more homework followed. Right at 9 pm, I got a "Restricted" call on my cell phone. Wondering who it could be, I answered it. I was SO pleasantly surprised to hear a dear and familiar accent on the other end!! It was my very good friend Adele calling from Hawaii where she is nannying!!! It had been months since we had talked on the phone and it was just incredibly good to get to talk to her again!!!!! We talked for about 90 minutes and probably would've talked a lot longer but she had to go. (It's probably a good thing, or I might not have gotten to bed at all! :P) That was just amazing and lovely. :D I knew that she was planning on calling but I didn't know when and I wasn't expecting it. *sigh* Very nice ending to the day. :)

~MONDAY~
Today was the start of yet another week. Time sure is relentless, isn't it?? In Physical Science, we boiled water until it froze. :D (I love the look most people give you when they hear that! :) But it's true! We really did! :D) They're all watching intently... (well, I guess all but Will ;)). There was no Latin test this Monday, which was a very nice break! That's because we were reviewing for the mid-term that is this Thursday. Our History mid-term is Friday, so I did some studying for that too. Nothing too exciting about today. (Oh, except that I got a letter from Christine!!! :D) "Just another day in Paradise!"
Well.... I guess today is Halloween. But that doesn't mean much to me.
Tomorrow is the Feast of All Saints... and since I'm planning on going to the 6 am Mass and since this post is PLENTY long already (!!!) - how many of you made it this far anyway?! ;) - I'd best wrap it up and turn in!

Thanks for reading!! :D I'll be back next month! :)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So perfect...

If I Should Die Tonight
~by Arabella Eugenia Smith

If I should die to-night,
My friends would look upon my quiet face
Before they laid it in its resting-place,
And deem that death had left it almost fair;
And, laying snow-white flowers against my hair,
Would smooth it down with tearful tenderness,
And fold my hands with lingering caress, --
Poor hands, so empty and so cold to-night!


If I should die to-night,
My friends would call to mind with loving thought
Some kindly deed the icy hands had wrought,
Some gentle word the frozen lips had said,
Errands on which the willing feet had sped;
The memory of my selfishness and pride,
My hasty words would all be put aside,
And so I should be loved and mourned to-night.


If I should die to-night,
Even hearts estranged would turn once more to me,
Recalling other days remorsefully;
The eyes that chill me with averted glance
Would look upon me as of yore, perchance,
And soften in the old familiar way,
For who could war with dumb, unconscious clay?
So I might rest, forgiven of all to-night.


Oh, friends! I pray to-night,
Keep not your kisses for my dead, cold brow:
The way is lonely, let me feel them now.
Think gently of me; I am travelworn;
My faltering feet are pierced with many a thorn.
Forgive, oh, hearts estranged, forgive, I plead!
When dreamless rest is mine I shall not need
The tenderness for which I long to-night.


I could not have said it any better if I had tried to write it. Thanks be to God for poets who can express so well just what we feel! How perfectly expressed! There is precious little difference between this poem and my own sentiments.




......Happy Feast of Christ the King to all of you!!

T.G.I.F.

Joey was awfully glad the weekend had arrived! :P

Terrorists?

If you see this at the airport.............. take a train!

The Early Morning

by Hilaire Belloc

The moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other:
The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother.
The moon on my left and the dawn on my right.
My brother, good morning: my sister, good night.

Burned!

This towel kinda got a rough deal when we were making french fries last night! :P

1500+ Hits

Yep, it's growing all the time.... that number on the sword down there. ;)

Thank you all so much for coming, for commenting, etc. :D It gives me a reason to update. :)

God bless you, one and all!

Starkenburg Weekend

Okay! At last. A minute to sit down and relate recent events. :)

To start with Friday, the History quiz went decently. (I got it back today and was shocked to find that I had gotten a 96!!!!! :O I had thought I'd be lucky to come away with an 85 or something, so getting a good grade really boosted my day. :D) Most of the rest of the day dragged - except for a walk that I had taken in the morning which helped break things up a little. :)
I took Joey home with me about 4:40. We arrived to find Mom and Rose hustling with all the last minute things; packing stuff up in the car and grabbing the things that had slipped our minds before then. I was thrilled to have gotten a letter from Joe - much sooner than I expected! :D - so I had to take the time to read that before doing anything else. ;) .......At any rate, we managed to load up and ... with only a couple of delays for things still yet forgotten and remembered ... we were on the road by about 5:30.
We stopped in Topeka only long enough to get a fast-food Friday dinner and then we were on our way once more. There was a beautiful sunset behind us as we traveled east and it just wasn't satisfactory to get pictures of it in the rearview mirror, so I VERY gingerly held my mui-expensivo camera out the window at 75 mph and took a couple shots that way. The result was a very windblown Monica but a safe camera. :D

After the road Rosary, we got kind of silly........ has there ever been a road trip without silliness?! Not in my lifetime. ;) Rose and Joey were hilarious and definitely kept Mom and me entertained with their renditions of some of the Nylons' songs! *lol*

We got to the B&B about 10:30 pm, so not too bad. It was a really nice place and we felt pretty much at home. I slept really well that night - absolutely like a log (however logs sleep! I've never inquired into their sleeping capabilities). I don't know that everyone else had the same luck, but I certainly woke up feeling refreshed.

Saturday morning, then, we had a scrumptious breakfast of mixed fruit, bacon, toast and a cheesy-egg-ham-casserole thing that was awesome!! Oh, and orange juice. :) Good healthful start for the day. We left for Steamboat Junction about a quarter after 8 so that we could get to the starting point about 8:30. We thought. We waited outside at Steamboat Junction for half an hour while all these shuttles drove by, shuttling people from the end point to the beginning, but nary a one stopping to pick up the people at the halfway point!!!!! They were perfectly friendly people - I think every one of them waved and/or honked as they drove by us! ;) But we were feeling pretty stranded. At 9 o'clock (when the Pilgrimage was supposed to be starting), Mr. Ellis offered to take the group of us to the starting point in the priests' van. We squished in and survived the ten minutes or so that it took to get there. ;)
Perfectly in keeping with almost all Society functions, the pilgrimage got a late start. :P But at last, it did start. Joey went in the Knights chapter, Rose in the Children of Mary chapter, yours truly in the College chapter and Mom sandwiched between the Children of Mary and the College. :D The first five miles seemed to go really quickly to me. It's the prettier part of the trek and the fresher part too. ;) It seemed like no time at all before we reached the lunch point. Lunch was a rather lonely affair with a frozen ham sandwich and a drink (Mom had gone to take the van to the end point and my siblings were nowhere to be found :))... afterwards, though, I caught up with Adam and Christa and we went up to the cemetery that's at the top of the BIG hill there at the junction. It's a small place but neat to see anyway. It appeared to be a private cemetery.... one in which 4 or 5 generations of the same family were buried. The view was really nice and we sat at the top of the hill and rested for the remainder of the lunch hour.
The next seven miles got progressively harder but keeping my mind off things worked wonders and I got through! :D In fact, we all did. Nick was certainly inspiring to me that second half! He did all seven miles (five on gravel and two on pavement) barefoot!!!!!!! Plus, he was carrying an image of Our Lady and a mantle under it the entire twelve miles. Quite impressive. And it was his first pilgrimage ever. .......Matt and Adam did most of the intoning for the litanies and sung-Rosaries on the way there. They did a really good job!!
We reached the shrine about 4:15. As the afternoon had gone on, the clouds had rolled steadily in and it was overcast by the time we got there.

Mass started at 4:30 ...... just about the same time the rain started. The temperature dropped rapidly and the wind picked up as the rain became harder and more steady. It was certainly shivery!! But I'm sure that means it was a fruitful end to a pilgrimage - who ever said it's supposed to be a piece of cake?? ;)
We didn't stick around too long after Mass, but went into Hermann to eat dinner. We ate with Dave and his passengers at a place called Lyndee's (or something like that). It was sort of a cafe kind of place but they had a wide variety on their menu (from filet mignon to spaghetti to chef salad to ribs and hamburgers) and all their food was really good!! There were ten of us and our orders were brought out to us efficiently and with very few mistakes. :) Everyone was in super good spirits after the pilgrimage and we had a rather rambunctious meal! :D (I only hope we didn't really annoy any of the other diners. I think they were rather amused.) We arm-wrestled all down the table, but the match to watch was Dave and Nick. Nick was the champion!! :D But it was close and they were both quite red in the face and rather sweaty before a victor could be declared. :)
After dinner, we took some pictures outside in memory of last year's outings and then we were on our way.

We had decided not to stay the second night at the bed and breakfast but just to head on home, so we could have a little bit left of the weekend to settle back in and get homework done. We got out of Hermann about 9 pm. Mom, Rose and I took turns driving and resting and we pulled into the garage shortly after 1:30 am.
Overall, it was a very quick trip (not as quick as some though! :D)...... it was good to be home again.

On Sunday, I woke up in time for the 9 am Mass so I went to that. Mom, Rose and Joey went to the 11. (Dad had gone to the 7:30.) It was a chilly day and a rather lazy one. Mom and I were more sore than Rose and Joey but I don't think any of us were hurting TOO badly. :) Fr. MacDonald was visiting from Australia and came by the house to visit for a few hours. In the afternoon, I got some homework done. There were ups and downs to the day, but they're REALLY not worth going into ;) ....so I won't. :P


Today was chilly also. (Surprise! :P) But I'll take cold over hot any day (weather-wise), so it was great with me. :) The Latin test this morning went decently. I think I missed one word. Physical Science and History were uneventful, except that we managed to get off the subject in both. :D ...........Oh!!! That's right!!! I got another letter from Britt this morning!!! (If you're reading this, Britt, THANK YOU!! :D) I was so surprised. I hadn't replied to her other one yet but she was replying to a previous one of mine (we're off kilter, you see ;)), so I was very happy to get it. :) I love getting mail. Any kind of mail. But especially snail mail. :)

Anyway, that's all the news I can think of so I'm going to stop blabbing now. :D I'll be back whenever there is news to relate or when I've got sufficient free time to think up something brilliant to post. :) (See? If you blame lack of brilliancy on lack of time, it's a marvelous and unending excuse!) Okay. Yeah. Whatever. Enough. Goodbye.


:D


(Sorry. Just couldn't resist one more smiley! :) <-- or two more!)

Linguistics

neologist - n., one who coins, uses, or introduces new words in a language


.........makes you wonder who came up with the word "neologist"!!! :P

Candid? Camera

I just thought these made interesting close-ups. :D


Caught in the moment. Post-pilgrimage glee. :)

The Magnificent Seven :P (This was an attempt at the old-fashioned style of portrait - no smiles. Not successful on every person's part! ;))

Looking Ahead

This weekend is the pilgrimage to Starkenburg (or as someone accidentally put it: Spartenburg!! :P)... that means that after Joey's Knights meeting today (being secretary, he can't miss it), we'll set out for Missouri. It's about a five hour drive but hopefully we won't get in much later than 10:30 or so.
Tomorrow, we'll walk the twelve miles to the Shrine, scattered among the Knights, Children of Mary, and College chapters. I hope I'm up to it!! :/ Mass will follow at the end. God willing, the weather will be good. There is a campfire or bonfire of some sort planned. It was really small last year but still fun. It would be nice to have this year too.
We'll be spending Saturday night there as well, so that we may go to Sunday Mass at the Shrine. I imagine we'll be arriving back in the late afternoon or early evening. Not much left to the weekend after that! ;)

Before the weekend though, I've got a History quiz to take and after the weekend, a Physical Science test and lab. Always something to do! I can't wait until Thanksgiving or Christmas... or 'til exams are over!! .......Well, yeah, maybe I can.... but anyway.....

Life...

...can be so confusing.