Best Laid Plans

You know how sometimes you plan a day, start to finish, and then everything changes? That was my Saturday.

Original Plan:
Run for Life at 8:30 a.m., Recon team afternoon from 3-5ish, Core team meeting/dinner at 6.

I was excited for this plan. A 5K walk in the morning, relax afterwards, have fun with my Recon team, and enjoy a meeting/dinner with the Core team. But then things began to change. The Recon team fun was postponed, and I was extended an invite for a day of discernment in Fort Worth. All that stood in my way of new plan was the 5K. My hatred of Texas heat (and self-loathing that I had not been training at all for this) convinced me to dump the walk and do the discernment day.

So, I spent Saturday morning and afternoon with the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur in Fort Worth. Don’t freak out on me, I’m not joining the convent. I’ve discovered that these days are beautiful, peaceful days, filled with prayer and conversation and loveliness. 

I was blessed to be able to go with my friend Bailey. We arrived in the morning and met up with her friend Kelly. We were greeted by the sisters and ushered into their living space. After a brief snack session and others coming in, we went to the chapel for some morning prayer. After that, we went back to the living space where Sr. Charles Marie was waiting for us. She has served a good portion of her life in Rwanda and shared with us stories of missionary life.

We then celebrated Mass and enjoyed a delicious lunch. After lunch we played games with the sisters and I discovered that the sisters cheat like little kids. 🙂 We then prayed a rosary and visited another building in the convent, where we had kind of a Q and A with the sisters. After that, we did some scripture study with Sr. St. John and then prayer time to end the day.

It was a lovely day and totally refreshed me for the Core meeting that night. We had a fabulous fajita dinner and then planned out some great summer events. John’s kids made a song about us and I got to play with Darth!

Going backwards, Friday was wonderful as well! After FAR TOO LONG, I was able to go to East Texas and visit a very dear friend, her husband, her adorable three-year-old daughter, and her handsome newborn son. Such a joy. I miss them so much and wish they lived closer. I then drove to Fort Worth (lots of miles this past weekend!) and met up with Carrie. Her parents had graciously invited us to join them at Concert in the Garden in the Botanical Gardens. We had great seats and Carrie’s mom and dad prepared a delicious dinner from Central Market. The band was Mingo Fishtrap and they were so much fun. I really enjoyed them.

After two full days, plus a meeting, and Mass, etc. on Sunday, I was grateful for a Monday holiday!

Tee Vee

Anyone want to know what I watch on a weekly basis? No. Too bad, it’s here anyway. Since I watch everything on Hulu, there will be no order, except the way it comes to me.

Castle: one of the smartest shows on t.v. I love Castle, I love Beckett, I love Ryan and Esposito, I love Alexis, I love Castle’s mom. So great. Not a bad episode yet.

Bones: Pretty much ditto from above, just replace “Castle” with “Brennan”, “Beckett” with “Booth”, “Ryan and Esposito” with “Hodgins and Angela” and “Castle’s mom” with “Cam, Intern, Sweets, etc.”

Grey’s Anatomy: This one almost lost me last year with all the creepyness. Luckily this season is much better.

Private Practice: I never watched this year til some friends of mine got me hooked in the fall. Season finale this year was heartbreaking.

The Office: Has lost a little of it’s shine, but is still good. And now Holly might be coming back? Awesome.

Dancing With the Stars: So help me, I like this show. But my like seems to be waning. I didn’t even watch the finale this time because I am so not interested in Nicole. Let’s see who the next season brings to the dance floor.

Saturday Night Live: It is finally on it’s upswing again! Bill Hader, Jason Sudekis, Seth Meyers – I love them. And Kristen Wiig can come to any of my parties that she wants.

The Bachelor(ette): This show is sucking the life out of me. I really want to quit, but I can’t seem to. Anyone watch the 20/20 show a few months ago or whenever? The creator/producer/whatever guy is total sleaze. But I keep having hope that even though these people are going about it the complete wrong way, their hearts are int he right places. Oh, but can we ditch the fantasy suites? Ick.

Glee: I have mad love for this show. It’s delicious. The Gaga costumes were fabulous.

Parenthood: I like this one. I love Lauren Graham and Peter Krause, so it’s hard for me to not like this show. Lauren Graham has at least one “Lorelei” moment every week, which makes me happy, and I enjoy the Aspergers storyline as someone who has babysit several autistic/asperger children.

Seriously? How do I have time for all of this? Thank goodness for Hulu!!!

Lubbock or Leave It

This past weekend I went to Lubbock with my dad to visit my grandmother, Nanny (his mother). Nanny is 87 years young and delightfully crazy. She is the most active person I’ve ever known and keeps a busier social calendar than most college students. She is also the friendliest, nicest, most hospitable person on the planet. For her last birthday, she got 37 birthday cards. Thirty-seven. Her friends threw her three surprise parties (though it’s debatable among the family if they were actually surprises, or if she just forgot about them).

Anyway, I hadn’t been to Lubbock since August 2009, so when Dad asked me if I wanted to join him I said “yes! it’s been too long!” (just like Wolf Chili!)

After an eventful morning (don’t even ask), Dad and I left at noon and arrived in the 806 around 5. Just in time to relax a little bit and then head to one of my favorite hot spots: Rosa’s. Now, let me say this about Rosa’s. There are many locations in the DFW area. And even though they all have the pink and blue paint and all have the Taco Tuesday deal, it just isn’t the same. So, I got my combination nachos and my Dr. Pepper.

Joseph P. was in town from SA and so he came over later that night and after dessert, we went to Sugarbrown’s for coffee. Where we ran into Lisa and Joseph A.! (Yes, there are a lot of Joseph’s from the CSA group. Off the top of my head, I can name 8). After coffee in the Bronco patio, we went to the cathedral for adoration. I love that the cathedral in Lubbock is smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood (Nanny’s neighborhood, actually). I love that it has 24/7 adoration. Good thing we ran into Joseph A., cause CTK finally put a lock box on the adoration door and JRP and I didn’t know the code!

Saturday was low key. Breakfast and lunch at the house. An outing to the park and the Palacios house in the afternoon with JRP and Miss Ava. Dinner at Nanny’s. Cable television.

Sunday morning I got up early to go to mass at the Cathedral. Too bad I remembered the time wrong and showed up in the middle of the gospel! Whoops. I stayed to the end, returned to Nanny’s and had an omelet (one of my Dad’s specialties), and then the three of us went to Nanny’s church. Going to that church is like going to a family reunion. My parents were married there (and were members for several years) and Nanny has been going there since the late 1960s (whenever it was that she moved to Lubbock). It was at this church that my parents met and dated. Everyone in that church knows Nanny and/or my parents, and by default, knows me. Making it better is that two of the members are some of the last connections to my mom’s parents. Ross and David were my grandfather’s best friends and Ross was a groomsman at their wedding. Talking to them feels like talking to my grandfather (well, what I would imagine that to be like), so I’m always excited to see them.

After church and lunch, we hit the road again. I am happy in the town I live in, but I love visiting Lubbock. There’s something so incredibly comforting about the dust and the sun and the openness. It’s a retreat all in itself.

Yes, I’m Still Here

It has been awhile. Lucky for you all, that means I have a few things to talk about and thanks to the magic of  “scheduled posts,” it means I can space these things out and provide several posts over the next week or so. Woo hoo!

This one isn’t much. Just letting you know I am still alive and to look for some updates in the coming days!

Raindrops on Roses

…these are a few of my favorite things (right now):

Hulu.com. I have mad love for this site. I watch all my t.v. through this show. Thanks to my “queue”, I don;t even need DVR (like I could afford that). Hulu lets me keep my crazy schedule and not miss t.v. Love.

Bath and Body Works Orange Sapphire spray. I stopped by B&BW for the first time in forever and fell in love with the new scents. This one I wasn’t so sure about when I bought, but in just a few days of wearing it, I have received compliments and I love it’s citrusy smell (without smelling like I bathed in orange juice!)

SwagBucks.com Seriously, this is a cool site. In just a month and a half, I have earned $15 in Amazon.com gift cards. All by doing my daily internet stuff through the SB.com site. If you haven’t joined, please do. Click on the link I provided (that helps me out!).

Munchies. If you asked me to buy 4 bags of salty snacks for a party, I would pick Doritos, Cheetos, Sun Chips and Pretzels. So having them all in one bag is GENIUS. I love these things.

What are you currently loving right now?

Ex-Love #2

Reading.

First Date: Honestly, one of the earliest stories about me involves a book. At age 2, I memorized Cookie Monster and the Cookie Tree. My parents thought I could read until they handed me a new book. But it didn’t take long for me learn to read. And I had trouble stopping.

Courtship: I grew up loving to read. In first grade we had “readers”: books with several short stories. My first grade classroom had more than 100 of them. By February, I had read all of them. My teacher had to take me to the second grade classroom to get more. My family was frequent visitors to the public library. The maximum you could check out was 6 at a time, and I usually did get 6 at a time. Then, I read them all at the same time (mom never understood that one). We participated in Summer Reading Programs and Book It and all that stuff. My parents soon learned not to give me time outs in my room, because I would just pick up a book. As I got older, I read more and more.

The Breakup: Again, I blame college. Not a lot of time, paired with being required to read books meant I didn’t really pick up a book that I enjoyed. There were a few exceptions. I remember the night I started Timeline and then stayed up all night to finish it. Christmas Break and Summer Break usually meant reading, and of course, I read a lot during my conversion (non-fiction though, of course, as I was reading any book on Catholicism I could get my hands on). But really, I had pretty much stopped. After college, it just seemed hard to get back into the swing of things. Work and other activities filled my time.

The Reconciliation: I tried a reconciliation a few years ago, but I decided I should read the great literary classics. I made a crucial discovery. I don’t like the classics (in general). I wanted to read for fun, and I can’t read a classic without analyzing it and really having to think. I didn’t want that. Not that I wanted mind-numbing dribble, mind you, I just didn’t want to feel like school. And the classics made me think of school. So I started again with just your basic fiction. My aunt and uncle gave me some “already-reads” and they like crime novels, so I read some of those. Then life got busy again. Recently, I’ve realized how much I miss it. How much I miss a good story. My problem now is I don’t know what to read. Recently I started re-reading some books that I own and enjoy, just to rekindle my love. If anyone has any suggestions for books I should read, please leave them in the comments. I may even just have to suck it up and pay the $50 for a library card (since I don’t live in city limits, I have to pay for the library…even though my town doesn’t have a library. Don’t get me started.)

Ex-Love #1

Baseball.

Oh you sweet, sweet game.

First date: I don’t remember when I started loving baseball…I can’t remember not. My dad played softball for years (as in 30+) with our church team, so much of my life in the spring and in the fall was spent at softball practice or at softball games. I was born in December, so when practice started up in Feb or March, mom and dad would take me to the field. And of course, Dad watched baseball on t.v., so I had it there too. The first sport I played was soccer, but I gave that up at age 8 to play softball. I joined the local girl’s league and my love grew. Now I was at my own softball practices and games, plus my dad’s, plus my sister’s. The Rangers became my team (yes, because they were local). I remember going to games at Ranger Stadium and cheering on Dean Palmer.

Courtship: There came a time, somewhere in middle school and high school, where I became very much in love with the sport. I watched every Ranger game I could. I knew all of the players and could probably give you the starting lineups for most teams in MLB. I had memorabilia and autographs books and thought that the best way to spend a Saturday was to watch This Week in Baseball and then the Saturday noon game on Fox. I have distinct memories of staying up late with my dad to finish watching a game, including the 90s game of Rangers vs. Baltimore where the Rangers scored something like 27 points. Dad and I had to silently celebrate  each and every run because it was past midnight and my mom was asleep.

The Breakup: Two things caused me to stop loving the game as much (and no, the strike had nothing to do with it). One was college. I moved to a town that had no professional team, which meant interest in games was lower. It was hard to watch a game because there was maybe only one or two games on t.v. a week. Plus, I was a busy college student and this was before TiVo and DVR’s and Hulu. I didn’t have time to tape the games and watch them later. Of course this only applied in the months of April, May, September and October. June, July and August should have been fine. Which brings me to reason number two: I worked for the Rangers in the summer. Pretty ironic that working for them broke me from loving the sport, but it did. Not in a “don’t work at a restaurant you love, you’ll end up hating the food” kind of way;” I still loved the sport. The problem with working for the Rangers is that you never get to see the games. Home games meant I was at the Ballpark, running around, working, catching a glimpse of the game here and there, but never seeing the whole thing. Even on the night when work finished in the 7th inning, I wanted to beat the traffic and get home, not stay around and then spend an hour getting out of the parking lot. Away game days, I was catching up on the school work and activities I had slacked off on home game days. The end result was two of the funnest summers I’ve ever had, but almost zero games watched. The other two summers of college, I stayed at my university, again, not able to watch a lot of games. The next thing I knew, an old friend was asking me what I thought of this year’s Rangers team and I realized I didn’t even know who the players were!

It’s been that way ever since. I pay attention, I’ve even attended a few games since college, but my love and passion hasn’t fully returned.

The Reconciliation: This year, that’s starting to change. I’m playing Fantasy Baseball with my dad and some of his friends, so I need to pay attention to win. I work in a job that allows me to listen to day games and while I will miss some of the night games, there will be a lot that I can watch. I’m attending a game in two weeks, which will probably put me right back in the spirit. I can feel it. I’m ready to love the great summer game once again.

To All The Things I’ve Loved Before…

Hold on to your hat, I’m going to start a blog series.

I’m such a theme person, it shouldn’t be surprising. I blame yearbook. Even our non-theme years had an underlying subtle theme (which is exactly what you should do in those circumstances).

Anyway, before I get swept up and start giving yearbook lessons on here, let’s get on with it.

This week, I am going to have a 3-part series on things that I used to love, fell out of love and am trying to rekindle that spark. I thought of these things recently and decided to write about them. So check in on Tues., Wed. and Thurs. and enjoy. Or don’t. It’s up to you.

Weekend Update

5 tidbits of my weekend:

1. We got new couches! And I didn’t have to lift a finger or pay a cent! A friend at church was in position to get rid of a couch and a loveseat, and since we have neither, she offered them to us. Two of the teens helped and they delivered the couches to my apartment and brought them upstairs. Of course, not without excitement – while driving over, the couches flipped off the trailer. There is surprisingly little damage and once the boys come back over tomorrow to fix something, they will be good as new.

2. I took advantage of a relatively quiet weekend with no roommate (though I missed her) and did a lot cleaning and laundry and organizing. The thing that I hated is that I didn’t get 100% done, but I’m really close. This weekend is low key as well, so I might be able to finish up then.

3.My weekend started early on Thursday night with a little Girls Night. Fruit, chocolate, wine, Steel Magnolias, and laughter. Oh, the good life.

4. I spent 5 hours in a meeting yesterday with 6 other people. That might not sound like fun. But it was pretty darn awesome. It helps that the meeting was split up – 2 hours to begin, then a window of 4 hours, then the remaining 3 hours. So much laughing and so much Holy Spirit.

5. Quote of the weekend: “Uh, I get the impression that adult relationships are a little bit different than teen relationships.” – JBS.  Yes. And no. All at the same time.

Winter Wonderland

Some of you know I live on a horse ranch. In a small town. Or as my sister puts it: “123 Horse Ranch Dr., Boonies, TX”

Today was our third snow of December. To people up north, this is not unusual. To everyone in Texas, this is weird. I came home from work just a little bit after the snow had started and found out one of the big bonuses of living in the middle of nowhere:

It’s BEAUTIFUL when it snows.

The other bonus of the day is that my new camera came in. So take pretty snow on a beautiful landscape and combine it with a brand new camera that has a beach/snow setting and this is what you get: