Happy Mother's Day =o)

It has been a wonderful Mother's Day. =o) I am so blessed to have my beautiful daughter! Even during our rough patches, she's the number one person in my life and I love her tremendously. She brings me more joy (and sometimes more tears) than any other person in my life, and for that, I am eternally grateful.

Being a mother is not always an easy job. We don't have a manual to refer to whenever there are issues. We just have to do the best that we can and make sure that everything we do is done with love and the best of intentions, and a LOT of prayer. ;o)

I hope all of my dear moms out there have had a great day and realize how special they truly are. I leave you with this Mother's Prayer to the Guardian Angels of Her Children:

I humbly salute you, O you faithful, heavenly Friends of my children! I give you heartfelt thanks for all the love and goodness you show them. At some future day I shall, with thanks more worthy than I can now give, repay your care for them, and before the whole heavenly court acknowledge their indebtedness to your guidance and protection. Continue to watch over them. Provide for all their needs of body and soul. Pray, likewise, for me and my whole family, that we may all one day rejoice in your blessed company. Amen.

Everyday Blessings

This morning as I was doing laundry, washing dishes and vacuuming the carpets, I realized that I should always approach these chores with a happy heart. Why, you ask? Well, let me explain.

I am blessed to have enough clothes to fill a washer (a few times over, actually). I am not dressed in filthy rags that I have to wear day in and day out because they are all that I have. I have electricity, water and laundry detergent to clean my clothes with. Is sorting clothes worth all the grumbling when afterward you have clean, nice-smelling things that make you feel and look good? Of course not! There's no point in grumbling about it (although I do have to confess, even now, I sometimes catch myself grumbling a bit about folding and putting them all away afterward!).

I am blessed to be able to have food to put on these dishes that I have to wash. I am blessed to have enough dishes to invite friends and family over to eat with us and to enjoy each other's company.

And I am blessed to be able to vacuum these carpets every morning because I am thankful to have a home to live in! This is my personal space for me and my child, and it makes me feel good to keep it clean and take pride in it. I know how easy it is in this day and age to lose everything and have no place to live, no place to call home. I know that there are a great many people out there who don't have a roof over their heads.

When you look at it in this light, there is no reason to be irritated about doing housework and chores. I'm not saying that I'm perfect and that there aren't times I'd rather be doing something else, but for the most part, doing these things make me feel good and give me a sense of contentment.

Let us always remember to count our blessings, even those that may be in disguise!

Frustrations

Sometimes I feel like none of us are really getting anywhere. Wake up, rush around getting the kids off to school or daycare, go to work, run errands, come home, be too tired to want to do anything. Everyone has to have the latest gadgets to do their thinking for them or make their lives "easier" and the term "hard work" has truly lost its meaning for so many people.

I want life to be simple.

I want to have a life where I can put my family first and not have to stress and worry about bills and lack of money for this or that.

I want to be able to take my daughter (or myself) to the doctor when I want to, ANY doctor that I want to, and not have to have some dorky little card with that doctor's name on it because that was one of a small handful of doctors that I got to choose from.

I want to be able to feed my child healthy food that I don't have to go into debt buying (and no, I can't plant a garden here in this apartment complex, unfortunately). The healthy stuff is expensive, the junk food is cheap. We're all just trying to get through the week.

I want to sit down in front of the television with my child and not have to be embarrassed at the utter crap that's on nowadays. And I'm not just talking about the shows, I'm talking about the commercials as well. It's a shame that trash sells and it only sells because people continue to buy.

I want things to be simple, calm and peaceful. I want people to appreciate each other and to help one another instead of wondering what someone else can do for them all the time. I want there to be more thank-yous, more common courtesy, more respect for one another. We are running ourselves into the ground. Running and running and going nowhere.

Take a good look at your life -- are you where you want to be?

It's A Beautiful Day Today!

It is absolutely gorgeous outside today! I spent a good deal of time sitting out, soaking up the sunshine and praying my rosary. If every day were like this, I'd certainly not complain, especially for January weather. I did hear, though, that we'll be having some nasty weather soon, so better enjoy the good stuff while it's here!

I went out to breakfast this morning with my mom and sisters and that was awesome. I love the four of us getting to go out and be free of the kidlings and all that jazz. After breakfast we went shopping and I splurged a little bit on some fun stuff for me and Dylann. Came back home, had some ice cream for lunch (hey, I couldn't think of anything else that sounded as good!), did a load of laundry, hung up all of D's band t-shirts and then hopped on here to see what everyone was up to.

My sister and I have decided that we're going to start doing some volunteer work on weekends at animal shelters. It will have to be no-kill shelters or else I'll end up with a whole houseful of animals. The grey and white tom cat who wanders the neighborhood has already stolen my heart, and we've affectionately nicknamed him Hobo. I was cleaning out the litter box the other night and he came prancing over and nuzzled against me. Sweetest thing ever! So now he loves me and I feed him and we're going to be BFFs.

And that's pretty much it in my neck of the woods. Life is great, my friends are beautiful and God is awesome!

Crazyville

Today I had the misfortune of dealing with a very disturbed individual. I had to block him and report him as well, and over something as ridiculous as him not being happy with a response I'd sent to him. My response simply stated that we didn't need to chat on AIM, but that if he needed me to pray for someone (which was his sneaky way of trying to keep in contact with me), to drop me a message and I would pray for that person. Apparently, this wasn't a satisfactory response because he came back, both guns blazing, with the most insulting, rude, harrassing, blasphemous verbal vomit that I've ever had the displeasure of reading. I showed the messages to several friends who agreed that this individual is in need of help, and that I will probably end up having to file charges with the local PD because people like him will do whatever they can to twist it all around and make it seem like my fault. But they all know who he is, they know his name, they saw the messages and various chat logs and they can very easily see where the issue lies and if necessary, I have them as witnesses. In this day and age where people do crazy stuff, you can never be too careful.

I will admit that I was floored by the fact that this person, a self-proclaimed Christian, spewed out insults toward Catholics, priests, saints and the Blessed Mother. Those are not things one can take back. He will realize one day that he is going to be held accountable for those things, even if they were thrown out in the heat of the moment. No one forced him to write any of that, he chose his words carefully. He also had the audacity to claim I was "going to hell in a handbasket" because that is what God showed him. Yeah. Certainly he and I do not worship the same God. His words were definitely more of the devil than of God, and I'm pretty sure that he's teetering on the dark side, and God's love is definitely not in him.

There were red flags from the moment he and I started talking, and I think it was God's way of warning me to not get too close. I even talked to various people about this, and they told me to run - not walk - but RUN away from him as quickly as I could. But being the soft-hearted schmuck that I am, I stupidly gave him chance after chance, hoping that he'd get the hint that we were just going to be friends, or nothing at all. I didn't want a relationship with him like he wanted. He had a girlfriend that he was sneaking around on to chat with me, which I expressed several times that I DID NOT LIKE and wouldn't keep tolerating. And when I finally put my foot down, he came unglued. Unfortunately, there will always be unstable people like this out there, and you just have to wash your hands of them and have nothing more to do with them, and let them self-destruct if that's what they want to do. I certainly won't be losing any sleep over bad rubbish.

More Prayers Answered

Today has been rough for me, but I'm getting through it. I have faith that the rest of the year will get better, haha! =o)

I was given a wake-up call this morning about a potential relationship ~~ it wasn't meant to be. While I was initially a little saddened by it, I'm okay with it now because 1) I have been praying an awful lot that if this isn't the relationship I need to be in, that God will let me know and not allow it to develop into anything, and 2) the past three potential relationships I've been involved in, I have been somewhat of a "place-holder" when the guys were having trouble with the relationships that they were in. (And for the record, I wasn't aware that they had girlfriends at the time -- I don't play that game.) I am very grateful that the person involved let me know before I really got in too deep and fell too hard, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't sting just a little bit. Someone told me a while back that whoever I date should be so close to God that they have to go through God just to get to me. I like that idea! LOL!

The second sad thing today is that my priest is leaving the parish. =o( I think he's just awesome and so this is really a sad thing. I get attached to people quick and it hurts to see them having to move on to something else. But it's all a part of God's plan, and I was warned about this when I started attending this particular parish, that the priests never really know how long they will be there before they get moved somewhere else. I will just keep him in my prayers and wish him the best, and be thankful for the time that we got to have him in our parish. =o) I am also praying that the next priest will be just as awesome.

I can't complain too much because this is only the 2nd day of the new year and the first day was marvelous, so maybe this year has potential after all. =o)