This Day Last Year

One year ago today, Dad and I were in the Utah desert, soaking up the sun and loving the dry heat and the deep blueness of the sky. I wouldn't enjoy living there, but I sure enjoyed visiting!

The Blogosphere's Got Talent

There's a talent show going on over at Kingdom Twindom! The deadline for entries was yesterday and I was too busy to get my blog post about it up in time, but Sarah was kind enough to include my YouTube link anyway. (Thank you, Sarah!)

I'd like to present my sister as a contestant. She has a naturally beautiful singing voice and nurtured it with a couple of years of singing lessons in high school. She's 21 now, but at the time of this video - in which she sings Se Tu M'Ami - she was 17. (I'm sorry that the video quality is poor - it is an mpeg from an old digital camera.)

So, what do you think? Is she a winner? :)


Good luck to the other contestants. Based on the entries I've seen, it's not going to easy for the judges to decide!

Wordless Wednesday: Geranium

May 14, 2009

You can find other participants' photos listed here.

Morning Light

April 14, 2009; 7:44 AM

Getting Our Garden Underway

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.
~May Sarton


A week ago yesterday, Mom planted marigold seeds and I planted tomato seeds. Yesterday, I planted bell pepper seeds. Yesterday or the day before, some of Mom's marigolds sprouted... and this morning, a couple of my tomatoes are pushing their way through the soil!! Our geranium is getting on the act with a couple blooms of its own. The container herbs have withstood the winter months. Even the "worm farm" we started in the late fall is going great guns. :)

It was 17 degrees yesterday morning, but now it is 41 and sunny (and Thursday is forecast to be 75!)... and with all these lovely green things coming to life, it does feel like Spring is just around the corner!

I'm not sure what we'll plant next - maybe onions - but it's very exciting to get this underway! ...Hopefully I'll still be thrilled about it even when "mosquito season" has arrived and the heat and humidity have settled like a blanket around us. ;)

God is good.


There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder.
~Alfred Austin

Lourdes

Happy Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes! I went to Mass this morning and among my other intentions, I prayed for all my blog readers. So if you are here reading this, I offered Mass for you and your intentions this morning. :)

Mom and I were fortunate enough to visit Lourdes this past August, 150 years after Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette. I had seen pictures of Lourdes, heard about what it was like, and had my own expectations... but somehow, seeing the place of the apparitions for myself was more moving than I had anticipated it would be.
The 150th anniversary (coupled with THE vacation month in Europe) meant that there was a lot of hoopla throughout the entire town of Lourdes and crowds of people at the Grotto. Nonetheless, standing before the statue of Our Lady in the rock and surrounded by people who were devout believers and others who were simply curious, I felt an almost palpable calm, a tangible peace. It was as though Our Lady was reiterating, "I am your Mother. You have nothing to fear. Come to me." I did not get that impression anywhere else... In fact, on occasion, it was quite the opposite. What they have done to St. Bernadette's former parish church and the place where she received her First Holy Communion is revolting. Yet, no matter the time of day, regardless of the crowds of pilgrims and tourists, in rain or in sunshine, every visit that we made to the Grotto (4 times in all, if I remember rightly) was marked by the same sense of the sacred.
And my impression of Lourdes was changed forever.

Global Warming??

Tonight's forecast: Darkness and weather after 10 PM. Tomorrow, there's a 100% chance of daylight and continuing weather. ;)


Yesterday and the day before, we had lovely, beautiful weather! We lifted the windows and propped open the doors. The fresh air was... just that! a breath of fresh air! :) The sunshine was invigorating and the warmth revivifying. It never fails to amaze me the effect that weather - good or bad - can have on one's morale! I felt more motivated yesterday than I have since Christmas.
Come to find out, we set a new record high. 71 degrees! No wonder it didn't feel like February 7!
I seized the mood and set about making cinnamon rolls for this morning's breakfast.
While those were rising, I whipped up several dozen chocolate chip cookies.

And while those baked, I snatched the chance to go sit outside and soak up a few rays. The light was sooo pretty, albeit the grass is still brown.
Later, as I was browsing through some old blog posts, I came across three previous ones related to weather... All of them talked about unseasonably warm weather. I have not, in four years, written a single post about unseasonably cold weather. Maybe there's something to that global warming after all?!? :P

Little Miracles of Grace

They were calling it a miracle before a mere 24 hours had elapsed. The plane crash/landing in the Hudson River on January 15, 2009, that is... When Captain Sullenberger skilfully and adeptly guided his failing aircraft into an emergency landing without losing a single life. This may have been a miracle, at best; it must have required great skill and presence of mind, at least.

This evening, I came across a beautiful article (hat tip to Joe) that relates one passenger's account - and the unmistakable role of Providence in the events of that day and his life. It is remarkable...

The Divine Mercy and the Hudson River Landing

While it may never be proven that the safe landing of flight 1549 was miraculous in the strict sense of the word, I have no doubt that this is just one of many little, unseen instances in which God works a miracle of grace.

Beauty... and Gratitude

Goodness, truth, and beauty... three facets of philosophy, three of God's myriad of attributes. Intimately linked, yet distinct: goodness is true and beautiful; truth is good and beautiful; beauty is true and good.

Beauty is not solely in the eye of the beholder, as the idiom would have you believe. In that which is beautiful to the eye, there are objective realities and guidelines that would have it defined as beautiful. Symmetry is beautiful, for example. It may be trendy to favor the asymmetrical, but symmetry has an undeniable and classic beauty.

Beauty, however, is not limited to that which is visible in the created physical world. There is beautiful music, fascinating in its elusive harmony. There are enchanting sentiments, capturing our attention with their nobility and idealism. There is beauty in self-discipline and self-sacrifice.


...Yours truly has a certain inclination toward cynicism and sarcasm, both by nature and by nurture. In my early teenage years, almost nothing gave me greater satisfaction than that derived from a "clever" sarcastic remark. I have been blessed or cursed (depending on how you look at it) with a quick wit and a tongue that has difficulty repressing some of the "perfect!" comebacks. I soon discovered, though, that while some sarcasm, under the right circumstances, was humorous indeed, an overindulgence in such a "pastime" quickly led to a too-bitter outlook on life. The same thing was true of cynicism. At first, it is great fun to see things through a cynic's eyes, but after awhile, it begins to detract from the vibrant beauty of life. Pointing out life's little ironies is one thing, but to become utterly unable to see anything for which to be grateful is quite another. I think that one element of child-likeness is to be able to keep one's eye on the silver lining and to be grateful for all the little things. We mustn't take the beautiful things in life for granted. There are so many beautiful things to see, if we will just open our eyes... And oftentimes, they are the littlest things.

The other day, I was thinking about how much I have for which to be grateful. The Faith, for one thing. That's huge. My family. Also a very big thing! And silly though it may sound, it also occurred to me to be grateful for the nice big deck that we have and enjoy so much... for a relatively spacious yard, for a house/roof over our heads, for our health, for the community in which we live (there's no place on earth I'd rather be in times like these!)... for the grace to see these things and the opportunity to be grateful for them!

Life is beautiful. And it's worth living. Sometimes we need an attitude adjustment; but there will always be something beautiful to see and to be grateful for, as long as we try to know and do God's Will!

God IS goodness, truth, and beauty. Wherever we see these, we see also a dim reflection of Him.