Mama-luia

I never got around to doing my All Saints' Day post. I also lazed around about doing an Advent post, and here we are post-Epiphany! What's wrong with me? So I will focus on Advent for now. Christmas soon to follow. Then maybe a New Year's wrap-up. By then it will likely be Noah's birthday so I'll have to regale you with stories all about us celebrating his turning one. Sigh. I'm not a lazy blogger. Just an otherwise-occupied one. I digress. I love Advent. As a child, I really only knew it to be the days preceding Christmas, but there was still a certain beauty to me in lighting the Advent wreath and singing the simultaneously mournful and joyous "O Come O Come, Emmanuel." I knew something was happening in the Church; something was happening in my heart, too. Baby Jesus was coming. And I was excited. As the "liturgical co-ordinator" of our domestic church, I take the responsibility of planning how we celebrate the Church calendar. ...

We are so busy here these days. Christmas is right around the corner, and we have decided this year to reeeeaaally simplify things. We were inspired by two very different people: Dave Ramsey , the Christian financial guru and capitalist extraordinaire (much to my quasi- Distributist chagrin) and Catherine Doherty , the holy poverella of Combermere. So we're giving only homemade, handmade, re-gifted or second-hand gifts. (We've also already told our family that we want to get gifts like this as well.) That makes for a busier pre-Christmas season (a season, of course, which is different from Advent, because we're already in the THICK of pre-Christmas now, and Advent doesn't begin until the 29th) than, say, if we were just going to our local Wal-mart and picking up bath salts and gift cards for our loved ones. In fact, almost all of the gifts on our list are going to be home-made, that is, sewn..., that is, Mama-is-in-charge-of-the-gifts-this-year. I am...

I just read the most beautiful blog post . I can't really sum it up; I couldn't do it justice. Just read it, dear friends. It's something I have been thinking about a lot lately -- being mindful as I go about my duties of the moment. It seems like a whole day passes by, and I have nothing to "show" for it. Then I look lovingly at my peacefully sleeping baby, my dedicated husband, my cosy (albeit messy) home, and think, the peace and joy in our home is in itself an accomplishment I can be proud of! There was a time when the only thing I wanted is what I already have right now. I want to return there, in my heart, and remember to be grateful. When we delight in Him, God gives us the desires of our heart. When I feel like I being drowned in housework, my inadequacies, my pursuance or fantasy for something "more", I become so divorced from my heart that I forget, this is actually what I've wanted all along. A friend of mine describes her life like this: ...