Friday funnies

Day five of The novena to St. Therese

Thankful Thursday.

Day four of The novena to St. Therese.

Thank you Lord for the blessing from big families.

Thank you Lord for another little baby.

Thank you Lord for all the blogging and online friends that support me in my life as a Catholic mother.

Thank you Lord for our family night out tomorrow night and for the weekend.

Celebrate with us.

Day three of The novena to St. Therese.

Baby number 8 is due to arrive at the Aussie Coffee Shop in late January/early February 2009.

Steve and I are both really excited about having another one and feel very blessed.

The children are over the moon and we have plenty of suggestions for names.

Prayers for the baby and for me would be very appreciated.

Washing day, Ironing day, Mending day.

Day two of The novena to St. Therese.




Monday Wash Day

Lord, help me wash away all my selfishness and vanity, so I may serve you with perfect humility through the week ahead.

Tuesday Ironing Day

Dear Lord, help me iron out all the wrinkles of prejudice I have collected through the years so that I may see the beauty in others.

Wednesday Mending Day

O God, help me mend my ways so I will not set a bad example for others.

Thursday Cleaning Day

Lord Jesus, help me to dust out all the many faults I have been hiding in the secret corners of my heart.

Friday Shopping Day

O God, give me the grace to shop wisely so I may purchase eternal happiness for myself and all others in need of love.

Saturday Cooking Day

Help me, my Savior, to brew a big kettle of brotherly love and serve it with clean, sweet bread of human kindness.

Sunday The Lord's Day

O God, I have prepared my house for you. Please come into my heart so I may spend the day and the rest of my life in your presence.

Thanks Abbey for emailing me this.

Novena to St. Therese

Day one of The novena to St. Therese.

Prayer intentions:

Alexandra: For wounded extended family members - may they find peace and love through Christ, and not of people and things of this world.

Easter: For the unemployed and for Kathy H that she finds a kidney donor soon.

. from Alfazema: For her mother's need.

muddy mama: For good health.

Ukok For a private intention.


Vicki: for Cyndi B - a homeschooling mom who was recently diagnosed with cancer.

Lowdenclear for a private intention.

John Michael:
A elderly parishioner who has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer;
My mother Mary Alice and all Mothers without whom we would have no Church;
My discernment of a vocation to the Permanent Diaconate;
All those suffering in China and Myanmar in the wake of the earthquakes and tsunamis;
All who suffer persecution for their faith and belief in God.

Esther
for my dear father in law and his wife's private intentions.
for My sister and brother in law's renting their home to good and responsible people.

Karnak: to secure another more interesting job by the end of the year.

I also will be praying for one of my private intentions during this novena.

Therese.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be the first day of The novena to St. Therese.

If you have any special prayer intentions that you want me to pray for while doing this novena leave a comment and I will include it in my prayer intentions. If you want me to pray but don't want to tell me what for, just leave a message that you want me to pray for a private intention. Let us all storm heaven together.

Therese

Sunday Morning.

It is a cold and rainy morning.

This morning Sam was suppose to start work at 5.00. His alarm didn't go off. He woke me at 5.50 and said I have to go. I am late. When I looked at the time, I told him he better ring and tell them he had slept in. I went and took him and then decided to stay up on computer. I caught up with a couple of blogs and was so cold I went back to bed. It was nice and warm and I could hear the rain on the roof. I think that cuddling in a nice warm bed and listening to the rain would have to be in my top ten of favourite things to do.

I got one curtain for the girls room done yesterday and I am hoping to finish them of today. Tomorrow I will do the last one for our bedroom.

I am also hoping to get some winter jackets made for us all in the next couple of weeks.

This Friday our parish is having a dinner. It is to raise money for the youth to go to WYD. Our whole family is going and I am looking forward to a night out. We went to Mass last night because I was on ticket sales before and after mass. I will go and sell them today as well.

A long weekend.

This weekend Australia has Monday off to celebrate the Queen's birthday. Even though The Queen's actual birthday is on April 21st, we celebrate it in June.

The weather looks like it is going to be a bit cold but it is a perfect chance to spend some time sewing curtains. I am hoping to get the girls room done and do our last curtain in our bedroom.

Last night Steve and I watched Memphis Bell. It was a good movie. I enjoyed watching it. Steve's and my movie tastes are so opposite that we rarely can find a movie to watch that we are both interested in. This one we both enjoyed though. It reminded me of Pearl Harbor.

An oldy but a goodie.

SISTER MARY ANN'S GASOLINE
Sister Mary Ann, who worked for a home health agency, was out making her rounds visiting homebound patients when she ran out of gas. As luck would have it, a Texaco Gasoline station was just a block away.

She walked to the station to borrow a gas can and buy some gas. The attendant told her that the only gas can he owned had been loaned out, but she could wait until it was returned. Since Sister Mary Ann was on the way to see a patient, she decided not to wait and walked back to her car.

She looked for something in her car that she could fill with gas and spotted the bedpan she was taking to the patient. Always resourceful, Sister Mary Ann carried the bedpan to the station, filled it with gasoline, and carried the full bedpan back to her car.

As she was pouring the gas into her tank, two Methodists watched from across the street. One of them turned to the other and said,

'If it starts, I'm turning Catholic.'

look at these.

I got sent these pictures in an email. These babies are made of marzipan. Marzipan is an icing that is made from sugar and almond paste. I find it amazing that someone can make these from icing sugar.

Five people in five categories.

Jean did the meme Ten people I would like to have 10 minutes with

and mentioned the Five people for five categories meme

I decided I wanted to do this one.

"If you could meet and have a deep conversation with any five people on earth, living or dead, from any time period, who would they be?" (Explaining why is optional.)

Name five people from each of the following categories:
Saints, Those in the Process of Being Canonized, Heroes from your native country, Authors/Writers, celebrities.

5 saints:

St. Therese of the child Jesus.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
St. Thomas Moore.
St. Joseph
St. Gianna Beretta Molla.

5 in the process of being canonized:

Blessed Mary Mckillop.
Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen.
Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Pope John Paul 11.

5 heroes from Australia.

Archbishop Pell.
Sir Donald Bradman
Edith Cowan
Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.
Sir Robert Menzies

5 Author's.

Mary Higgins Clark
CS Lewis.
Agatha Christie.
Paul Thigpen
Laura Birquist.

5 celebrities.

Judy Garland
Audrey Hepburn
Fred Astaire
Paul Hogan
Bert Newton.

Tag 5 people.

Jessica from the Flying Dutch Girl
Mark from Dominican Idaho
Marco from Third blog from the right
Leah from Lowdenclear
Shelly from Keeper of the Keys.

Wordless Wednesday.

10 people I would like to have 10 minutes with.

I read this on Ebeth's blog and wanted to do it.

1. Pope Benedict.
2. St. Therese
3. St. Elizabeth Seaton.
4. My Father's mother Annie.
5. My father's father, Thomas.
6. Cardinal Pell.
7. Mother Angelica.
8. Steve Ray.
9. Pope John Paul 11.
10. The Queen of England.

Who do you want to spend 10 minutes with?

Of course, I would love to meet all the people I know online but 10 minutes wouldn't be enough for all of them. I would want at least to have a meal with them.

Little Miss Splendid.

A while back I made a blog for my daughter Madeline. I didn't realize at the time you had to be 13 or older to have a blog. When I found out, I let her keep the blog but made it private.

Back in March, Madeline turned 13. She decided she wanted a new blog so started LIttle Miss Splendid

A great day.

Today I changed our home school and housework routine and it was great. The children seemed to like it too.

I have decided to get the children a bit more involved in the housework and be close by doing other things while they are sitting at the table working on their school work.

So I told them this morning that we were going to do things differently today. We started with prayer and then read a book. We then went in and they helped me clean up my bedroom and sewing area. My sewing area has been very neglected for the last couple of weeks and it tends to be a bit of a dumping ground for the children when I am not tidying it regularly. We did the room in 20 minutes so I let them go and play. Sam was home so I got him to go out and play a game of soccer with them. They really liked this. They had a snack and then played for a while together in the cubby house.

After their break I gave them both their spelling list and activities. I told Tom to do his spelling while Amelia read to me and then Tom read to me while Amelia did her spelling. They both needed to do a bit more work on their spelling when I had finished listening to them read so I went into the kitchen and started to prepare to make some muffins. I was still close by to them if they needed some help. My plan was to get them to help with the cooking once they had finished their spelling. When Tom finished his spelling he asked me if he could draw because they had some new colouring pencils. I said fine so they drew pictures while I cooked the muffins.

While the muffins were cooking, Tom and Amelia did some maths and then literacy. It was time for lunch so we packed up the home school books together and then ate lunch. In the afternoon, they played a couple of computer games and I cleaned up from my cooking and put the muffins away (before the other children came home and helped themselves to them all).

I found the day moved very smoothly and the children didn't object as much to working. I think they liked working together. I was concerned about giving them a break after only prayer, reading a book and doing a chore that they wouldn't want to come back and do anymore school work or housework. They surprised me when they did come back so willingly.

My plan is to continue this for the rest of the week. We will see how it goes. I am pretty confident we have found a good working routine that the children like and I like too. Best of all, the house is tidier than it has been any other day. Steve came home tonight and said wow, everything is so tidy. Hopefully this will continue and we will have a happy balance here for school work and house work.

Circus Royale.

Tonight, Steve and I took the children to the Circus. We saw the Circus Royale. What a great night of entertainment was had by all.

There were acrobat's, jugglers, contortionists, tight rope walker and clowns. They had llama's, camels, cows, geese, a dog and doves as well. Christopher was very excited about going and enjoyed the show thoroughly. He held on to me very tightly though when the tight rope walker walked across the rope on stilts.

If you live in Australia and hear about Circus Royale coming to your town, go and see it. It was such a wonderful treat for our whole family.

Circus Royale Website

Meet Logan, the Sky Angel Cowboy.

Get the tissues out for this one.



thanks to John Michael for emailing me the link to this

Do you have any special prayer intentions?

Last night I had an early night and read a couple of pamphlets with novena prayers on them.

One I came across was a novena to St. Therese.

A Jesuit priest, Father Putigan started this novena.

From EWTN

Father Putigan, a Jesuit, began the Novena to Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus on December 3, 1925, asking the glorious Saint for one great favor. For nine days he recited the "Glory be to the Father" twenty-four times thanking the Holy Trinity for the favors and Graces showered on Saint Theresa during the twenty-four years of her life on earth. The priest asked Saint Theresa, that as a sign that his novena was heard he would receive from someone a freshly plucked rose. On the third day of the novena, an unknown person sought out Father Putigan and presented him with a beautiful rose.

Father Putigan began the second novena on December 24 of the same year, and as a sign, asked for a white rose. On the fourth day of this novena one of the Sister-nurses brought him a white rose saying:

"Saint Theresa sent you this."
Amazed, the priest asked: "Where did you get this?"

"I was in the chapel," said the Sister, "and as I was leaving I passed the altar above which hangs the beautiful picture of Saint Theresa. This rose fell at my feet. I wanted to put it back into the bouquet, but a thought came to me that I should bring it to you."

Father Putigan received the favors he had petitioned of the Little Flower of Jesus, and promised to spread the novena to increase devotion to, and bring her more honor.

In this fashion, from the ninth to the seventeenth of each month, those who want to participate in the Twenty-four "Glory be to the Father's" novena, should add to those of their own, the intentions of all who are at that time making the novena, thus forming one great prayer in common.

I thought it would be good for those in the Catholic Blogging community to join together in prayer. We can pray for all our needs together. If you want to join in or have a special intention that you want everyone to pray for, leave it in the comment box.

I think it would be good to get lots of people involved in this so put it on your blogs too. Lets spread the word and join in prayer together.

Therese

Wordless Wednesday

Giving Thanks on Tuesdays.

I give thanks to God for all my children, my husband and all my extended family.

I give thanks to God for all the other home schooling mothers that left advise and helped me last week when I felt like giving up home schooling.

I give thanks to God for all the good food we have to eat and that we have never known hunger.

I give thanks to God that I am able to home school Tom and Amelia and that I am able to spend so much time with them.

I give thanks for all medication and devices we have to look after Tom's diabetes and that his blood sugars are so well controlled.

Hey hey it's Saturday.

Well it isn't Saturday today, it is Monday.

I couldn't think of anything really exciting to write tonight and I started looking through you tube video's from the past.

One of my favourite programs to watch was hey hey it's Saturday.

Every Saturday night it was on in many of my friends homes. It had many different segments and was pretty funny and entertaining.

I looked through lots of different segments. There was the good old Red faces which was anyones chance to come on and do a skit of some kind and where some people were lucky enough to get noticed and become quite popular. There was also pluka duck, funny foto's and lots of jokes.

Enjoy these two segments.

The Golden Compass.

I am sure many of you have heard about this book by Philip Pullman. I haven't read them or seen the movie but I have heard enough to know that it isn't something I want my children to see.

We got a note from one of our children's teachers telling us that they were going to be watching some movie's over the next few weeks and one of the movies on the list was the Golden Compass. I felt sick when I read the note. We know that the movie is anti Christian and presents the church in a bad light. Why the heck would anyone want to show this movie to a group of children?

We have given permission for our child to watch all the movies except The Golden Compass and written a letter explaining what is wrong with the movie to the teacher and why we won't let our child watch it.

I find it a bit frightening that secularism is so ingrained into our society that someone doesn't think it is wrong to show a movie like this in a Catholic School.


If anyone is interested in reading a bit more about the movie and why it shouldn't be promoted and watched by young children Catholic Answer's has a great article on it.

Happy Birthday Brigette.

Today Brigette turns 11. She was born on the feast of Mary, Help of Christians who is the patroness of Australia.

Happy Birthday Brigette. We are glad you are a part of our family. Your dad and I both hope you have a good day today and a good year.

Please join us in prayer.

Easter from Mostly Prayers
has a thread asking for prayers for those unemployed.

Please pray for the unemployed

Please go to her blog and join us all in praying the prayer to St. Joseph for all those that are without work and means to support their families.

From the comment box. Thanks Louise.

Tonight I want to post a bit more as a follow up to my previous post:

Do you ever feel like you want to give up?

Louise from Purcell's Chicken Voluntary made an excellent comment that made me think quite a bit today. I have realized many things from Louise's post so just wanted to comment on it and respond to it a bit here.

Louise's comments are in bold italics.

Maybe organising some time with their friends after school and on weekends might help on that score.

this would be good and I have approached a couple of mothers. Life just seems to get in the way of this. Hopefully it will happen sometime.


I opt for a very relaxed way of homeschooling myself and I know for a fact that a more rigidly structured style really burns me out - I have tries it.

You are probably like me (if you're a SHE!) and you may personally prefer flexibility over routine.

Yes. I am definitely a she. I do tend towards too much flexibility though.

Perhaps you could (just a suggestion here) spend a week or two doing just your Flylady morning and evening routines and perhaps the 15 minute declutter/ or Kelly Mission. Oh, and there is the laundry I suppose! But you could do that in 15 minute lots if you wanted and the kids could help (if they don't already).

You could, after your morning routine, gather the kids for a bit of prayer time (not too much - whatever you're comfortable with - baby steps!) and then set the timer for 15 mins maths, 15 mins English, either all the kids or just one at a time and alternate with some activities that *you* really enjoy! Why not set the timer for 15 minutes and say, "okay kids, have fun for 15 minutes and keep an eye on Christopher, while I do X."

You are obviously a beautiful, creative soul (and a SHE!) so work *with* that, not against it.

These are some great suggestions Louise. Thanks. I realized today that I do tend to work against being a she in several ways.

I don't know about you, Therese, but having a whole day of routine, day after day, makes me want to jump off a bridge. Really.

I think with me, this happens if we are doing the same thing every day. So when I plan routines, I plan a week ahead and try to vary the days.

Last term I had my morning routine, my home school timetable and an evening routine. Most days between 3 and 5.30 were unstructured except for running children to after school activities. It is definitely something I need. A time that I can sit and do nothing if I choose too.

Unfortunately, when it comes to homeschooling, we often expect ourselves (and others expect us) to be "structured" because we think this equals "organised." But it is possible to be organised, yet not very structured. Getting the balance right between all strucute, and no structure is probably a life-long journey for homeschooling SHEs! I often "tweak" what we do and how we're doing it.

I think what I worry about is the children will not be getting educated if we don't do abc in a certain order everyday. I think I worry about them falling behind other children their age and not really learning academically.

I am really aware that last term because I set a routine for the mornings that was the same day in day out they learnt really quickly that this was the way it was going to be and just got on and did it without arguing with me about it (after the first two to three weeks). I am finding myself fighting them more this term and they are doing less. I know I need to be firmer and deal out consequences for bad behaviour. I think it isn't the fact that we are home schooling that makes me want to give up, it is the fact that I haven't been firm enough with the children in setting the expectation.

Sorry this has been a long comment and feel free to ignore everything I've written, as it is mostly just my own experience coming through.

Thank you for your comment. It really made me think through what the real issue was.

Alphabet meme.

Esther from A Catholic Mom in Hawaii tagged me for this meme. Thanks Esther.

A: Amelia's mum
B: Brigette's mum
C: Christopher's mum
D: Daniel's mum
E: Eggs for breakfast
F: Fly baby.
G: Generous
H: Helpful
I: Insightful
J: Joyful
K: Kinky hair
L: Lovable
M: Madeline's mum
N: Nurture my children.
O: Original
P: Perky
Q: Queer
R: Religious
S: Sam's mum
T: Thomas' mum
U: Unbelievable
V: Violet is one of my favourite colours.
W: Warm weather is the best.
X: Xylophone is something I would like to learn to play.
Y: Yachting is something I would like to do too.
Z: Zoo. Sometimes it feels like our house is one of these.

I tag:

Alexandria
JoAnn
Uncle Jim
Ebeth
Rachel

Things that make you go hmmm.

Stewardesses' is the longest word
typed with only the left hand.

And 'lollipop' is the longest word typed
with your right hand.

(Bet you tried this out mentally, didn't you?)

No word in the English language rhymes with
month , orange, silver, or purple.

' Dreamt' is the only English word that ends in the letters 'mt'.
(Are you doubting this?)

our eyes are always the same size from birth,
but our nose and ears

never stop growing.

The sentence: 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog'
uses every letter of the alphabet.
(Now, you KNOW you're going to try this out for accuracy, right?)

The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right
or right to left (palindromes).
(Yep, I knew you were going to 'do' this one.)

There are only four words in the English language which end in 'dous': tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

(You're not possibly doubting this, are you ?)

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: 'abstemious' and 'facetious.'
(Yes, admit it, you are going to say, a e i o u)

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
(All you typists are going to test this out)

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds .

(Some days that's about what my memory span is.)

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

A snail can sleep for three years.
(I know some people that could do this too.!)

Almonds are a member of the peach family.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

(I know some people like that also . Actually I know A LOT of people like this!)

Babies are born without kneecaps.

They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast,
the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors

Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite!

Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.

The cruise liner, QE 2,

moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
(Good thing he did that.)

The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls
froze completely solid .

There are more chickens than people in the world.

Winston Churchill

was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Now you know more than you did before!!

The Rain-Thomas Kinkade


This is a Thomas Kinkade painting It's rumored to carry a miracle!
They say if you pass this on, you will receive a miracle.

I am passing this on because I thought it was really pretty,

and besides, who couldn't use a miracle?

Thanks to Jean from Catholic Fire for emailing me this.

What is your blogging type?

Your Blogging Type is Kind and Harmonious

You're an approachable blogger who tends to have many online friends. People new to your blogging circle know they can count on you for support. You tend to mediate fighting and drama. You set a cooperative tone. You have a great eye for design - and your blog tends to be the best looking on the block!

What's Your Blogging Personality?

Wow. It is nice to know that my blog is one of the nice looking ones. Of course, nice looking is so subjective. Some people may think my blog looks awful.

H/T to Rachel from Chasing Butterflies.

Do you ever feel like you want to give up?

We had a two week holiday 4 weeks ago. It went too fast. I really didn't feel too motivated to start school again and I am finding it increasingly difficult to motivate myself.

For the first three weeks we did an adequate amount of work on Monday, a little less on Tuesday and as the week wore on I just didn't make the children do anything except their reading, writing and maths. As well as the home schooling, I am not motivated at all to do any house work.I am only doing what has to be done.

Today is Monday again. We did all the lessons that I had prepared. I think every weekend, you just have to get up and do it this week. No more procrastinating and I plan my week.

Tomorrow we have

Religion, Maths, literacy, Reading, Spelling and cooking in our lesson plans. Last Tuesday we didn't do the cooking lesson and the children's literacy was pretty minimal. They ran outside and played while I did some reading and sewing in the afternoon.

I am finding that the enjoyment that I had before is not there. I don't really want to teach the children as much as I did last term. I know that home schooling is better for them but I just don't have the motivation for it as much.

So I want to know what other home school families do when they are not motivated? How do you get over these humps and get enthusiastic again? How do you stay motivated when you don't want to do anything?

One of my big concerns is the children are picking up my lack of enthusiasm and they have said a couple of times, why can't we go back to our old school? I really don't know what to say to them when they say this so I just say well it is good for us to learn all together and spend time together.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Therese

Another quiz.

I saw this one on Jessica's blog and wanted to do it.

What time is your alarm clock set to? either 5.30 or 6.00. I often cannot get up at that time though.

What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex? their looks.

Do you think people talk about you behind your back? Yes.

What movie do you know every line to? Probably Shrek and The sound of music.

What is your favorite movie? A wonderful life.

Is anyone in love with you? Yes.

Do you eat breakfast daily? Yes.

Do you sleep on your side, stomach or back? usually on the side and my back.

Who was the last person to make you mad? a person that made an ignorant comment on a blog I was reading.

Are you a lover or a fighter? Lover I suppose. I hate confrontation.

Are you a morning or evening person? Evening.

Are you a cuddler? Yes

Are you a perfectionist? Yes.

Have you ever wrote a poem? No.

Do you have more guy or girl friends? Girls

Piercings? 1 in my ear but I rarely wear earing's.

Do you have a tattoo? No

Are you patient? No.

Do you miss anyone right now? My family.

Tea or coffee? coffee.

Regularly burn incense? no.

Ever been in love? Yes and will be for a long time.

Best room for a fireplace? lounge room

What do you do when you're sad or upset? sulk.

Afraid of heights? Not really.

Can you change the oil in your car? No.

Favorite flower? Sturt Desert Pea's and Frangipani

Favorite hangout? The arid lands coffee lounge.

Middle name? Angela

Most romantic sounding language? I think french.

Ever been overseas? Not yet but I hope too.


I want to see what others would answer so I am tagging some for this quiz.

I tag;

Kimberly

Jane

Esther

and

Lynn