I Love This Place!!

I ask you! ...at how many other colleges could you get up and go to class and leave your things just as they are, without any fear of them getting taken or even messed with?!?!? I think, none. But at SMC... Leave your headphones, laptops, cell phones, and keys and you can be sure that when you come back an hour later, they'll be exactly as you left them. As it should be. And as it so rarely is. Thanks be to God for a college like ours! This is only one indication of the Catholic order and morality that ought to be in all places, and isn't.

Weather

We were two degrees short of breaking 1964's record high of 82 on November 2... it's been unseasonably warm, but there has been a lot of wind and the trees that looked like Autumn trees now look like Winter trees. I can only assume that the wind will also bring the cold weather with it. This weekend is still forecasted to be in the 70's, but we'll see what follows. Hopefully, there will be lots of snow this winter!! :D ....because - as we all know - lots of snow means lots of snow days! ;) :P
Anyway, there's your weather report, whether you were interested or not! ;)

The Meaning of Love

A bunch of little kids were asked, "What does love mean?" ...here are some of the best answers. They're really good! Children's perceptions of things can be so profound!! (It's also amazing what they reveal about their background, if you read between the lines.) I've only posted the better/best ones...

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."
Rebecca- age 8

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."
Billy - age 4

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs."
Chrissy - age 6

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired."
Terri - age 4

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."
Danny - age 7

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."
Bobby - age 7

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."
Tommy - age 6

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken."
Elaine-age 5

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget."
Jessica - age 8

And the final one -- Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.
The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.
When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said,

"Nothing, I just helped him cry."


Wow.



....It's somewhat refreshing the number of times the element of self-sacrifice comes through in their perception of love. At least, it's still out there somewhere (as children learn so much by example)! You begin to wonder if the selfless aspect of love (is it only one aspect?? Methinks it is the very definition of love...) has been completely lost in this world, in our day and age.

November Sky ....or.... Cloudscapes

I just thought this was a cool picture. Some of you already saw it over on my Pixies blog, but for those of you who didn't, I'm posting it here. Fantabulous, huh?!?!

A Beautiful November Day!!!

Today has been GORGEOUS!!!! Sorta windy, but the temperature has been glorious. My guess is mid-70's today, though the high might've reached 80. ON NOVEMBER 3!!!!!!!! :O :O

Yesterday was a really busy day. I went to the 9 am Masses... the three said for the Holy Souls, specially on that day. Immediately thereafter, I had Liturgy. From there, I came home for lunch and changed into painting clothes and went back up to the school to paint sets and rehearse for "Antigone." Dress rehearsal is two weeks from yesterday (and we'll have a small audience for it)!!! I made a trip to the cemetery and then came home for dinner and studying. Latin mid-term today and History mid-term tomorrow!! :/

Today, almost all of my spare time has been studying History (except for a little bit of Latin just before that test). I am home now, for the time being, but will be leaving again to group study. HOPEFULLY, that will go well. Sometimes, it's a really bad idea to group study. ;) Anyhow, I feel like I've put sufficient effort (and then some) into this test, so I'm not too, too worried. I don't think I'll ace it (after all, it's History), but I certainly don't feel like I'll go blank on anything.

Well..... that's all for now! Pretty boring post; sorry!
TTFN~

Feast of the Church Suffering... and a Request for Help!!

This is the only day of the year in which the Poor Souls are given a feast day. All other days are reserved for the members of the Church Triumphant. Prayers for the suffering souls in Purgatory are especially effective today and in the octave following. Be zealous, then, and strive to save at least one soul!! They never forget the help they get from you and will return the favor if and when you should need it also.

But in today's post, I'd also like to ask your generosity for the Church Militant:
There is a Catholic family in the Philippines who have just had their fifth child. Because of the situation they are in, with the mother being out of work, they have next to no income at all. They are having a very difficult time just putting food on the table and have been obliged to start rationing the remainder of their food to make it last. A traditional Catholic family - close friends of theirs - have started a way to donate money to help them through these tough times. An excellent opportunity to practice Christian charity and you can be assured that the funds you donate WILL reach the family you intend them for!!
Please do something towards this. Surely all we Americans can spare a little to help someone who needs it much more than we do. It's the month of November - the month of the Holy Souls. Even if we have our debts and such, can we not spare a few dollars and give up that rented movie, that cappucino, that pack of cigarettes... that luxury, whatever it may be...?
A single American dollar goes as far in the Philippines as ten would here in the States. Please do what you can to help a fellow member in the Mystical Body of Christ! The goal for November is $300 for this family. To donate using Paypal or a credit card, please click here!! (I don't know of any other way currently being used to get the money to them.) THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!! I'm sure it qualifies as a corporal work of mercy, not to mention the graces received from such an act of generosity and the prayers of these children that you will surely get in return!
In addition to financial aid (or if you truly can't afford anything), please keep this family in your prayers! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Friendship

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Oh, the comfort--the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person,
Having neither to weigh thoughts,
Nor measure words--but pouring them
All right out--just as they are--
Chaff and grain together--
Certain that a faithful hand will
Take and sift them--
Keep what is worth keeping--
And with the breath of kindness
Blow the rest away.

100 Posts!!

HAPPY FEAST OF ALL SAINTS TO EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!

This is my 100th post on the blog! Sounds like an awful lot. But that's one hundred posts spread out over about eight months. :D Anyhow, just a statistic!

Take care, everyone, and welcome to November, month of the Holy Souls!
God bless~

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!!