Moving Day

I've done it.  I've moved this blog to WordPress, and I'll delete it eventually.  For commenting, please go to the new site for Domestic Vocation.

Thinking of Moving

I have already made the move for my Soccer Mom blog, and I'm thinking of moving this one, too.

If I do, I promise to post a link and let you know.

Thanks!

IHM, Washington, DC, June 2010

Travel Man and I are blessed to have some very good (and very kind) friends in the DC area who host us annually and then watch our girls while we go to the IHM Conference in Chantilly, VA, each year. I've got copious notes which I MUST transcribe ASAP.

Because I forgot my IHM notebook and they're all written on the back of coupons I printed from MyPoints just before our vacation. So they're very valuable notes in more ways than one. I'll pass on the spiritual value to you, but if you want the monetary value, leave me your email and I'll invite you to MyPoints so you can print off coupons (and earn points towards free gift cards for exciting places like Wal Mart and Home Depot and the iTunes store).

Blog Facelift

I just did a quick update on the blog's look. If you're on a feed aggregator, feel free to click through and see the new, updated header and the new color scheme.

Travel Man will be SO thrilled to post, I'm sure. Not that he does much, anyway.

New Header

I just adjusted my header today for Advent and Christmas. If you're reading in Google or Bloglines, come on by and check it out!

Hodgepodge Link-O-Rama

I've got a bazillion links saved up in Bloglines, so I thought I'd post them all.  After all, why keep my hoarded-up blog posts to myself, right?  A lot of these are links I thought I'd expound on and wax poetic when I had time, but alas!  I have no time.  So here they are.  Make of them what you will.

• Sister Mary Martha discusses the different kinds of gluttony.  (Travel Dad might want to look into this stuff for his Crusades stuff that he's working on.)
• Father Philip has a link-o-rama of his own - all good Catholic sites.
• First Things has a post on the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae.  (I told you I'd been hanging on to this stuff!)  Turns out the pope was right.  (Shocker, I know.)
• First Things also had a bit about the shenanigans going on in the Minnesota Senate race.  Did you know that the review board was acting in a biased manner, and (shocker, again!) it all seemed to be in favor of Franken?
• Again from First Things: Father Richard Neuhaus wrote a while back about his conversion.  It wasn't apologetics, but a personal story.  Fantastic.  God grant rest to his soul.
• Here's one I haven't gotten to finishing yet, but Kevin talks about a mother and her daughters who were martyred during the Spanish Civil War.  Plus, he discusses FOCA and other interesting items.  
• Paul had a couple of items I've been saving.  First, a funny summary of the debates before the election (in case you missed it).  (The video seems to not be there, but the link provided gets you to a hysterical parody news site.)
• Paul also discusses why he, as a Catholic, believes in Santa.  I skimmed it, and want to save it for the time when Little Girl is ready to stop believing.  (I think she strongly suspects something, but doesn't really care to investigate further, unlike Big Girl's attitude towards the whole thing.)
• The Anchoress has some recipes for awesome Mystic Monk smoothies, which I cannot make because my blender is broken.  So I'm saving the recipes until I can make one.  She also had recipes for Oreo Truffles (which I found at Wal-Mart, but which she improves upon in her post).  In a non-cooking-related post, Anchoress also shares a really touching picture some sisters painted (and wrote about).  The image is of Eve and the Virgin Mary - and it just warmed my heart!
• Nancy Brown has weekly lectionary coloring pages.  What a motivation for little people to pay attention to Mass when they have a worksheet to do later!
• I'd never heard of the Nutrition Diva, but Julie says she likes her.  N.D. says that high fructose corn syrup is not the anti-Christ.  Really.
• Sarah mentioned that the Knights of Columbus have a book club, and you can sign up to get the monthly books sent automatically if you'd like.  Travel Man wants to do this.  (Is that a surprise to anyone?)
• Maureen Wittmann always has lots of snazzy stuff I like.  Home-based speech therapy (Little Girl has trouble with "r" even now, in second grade), environmental and outdoor education, and upcoming podcasts on how to teach with real books.  If you're a homeschooler, Maureen's blog is a fantastic resource!
• I don't have an iPhone or iPod Touch yet, but I plan on getting an iPhone in about a year.  When I do, I'll download the Brievery App pronto!
• Darwin Catholic has a neat post up about Ebenezer Scrooge.  What was his business, anyway?
• Faith and Country has a couple of those neat Fatherhood ads (PSA's, really).  They are so cute, and remind me a lot of Travel Man.
• NFP can be used to avoid pregnancy in grave circumstance.  But what does that mean?  The Ignatius Press Blog looks into how that phrase is translated.
• Dawn at Because I Said So has a link up to a cookbook she says has helped her get dinner on the table for her family of eight.
• Math-U-See has made some improvements in the new editions of their books.  I'm looking forward to seeing when we finish off the math we're working on now
• Sonitus Sanctus had a lot of good links to MP3s and podcasts that I've been meaning to get onto my iTunes list: Latin prayers, Theology of the Body, general catechisis, How the Church Built Western Civilization, Where We Got the Bible (which is also a great book!), and Blessed Mother Teresa's 1994 Prayer Breakfast Speech!!
• Stories like this one from Fox News make me sick.  The Culture of Death is all around us.
• The Knights of Columbus have a knack for finding all the stories I want to read.  They've pointed out that the Vatican is pointing to the Pill as a reason for male sterility (not to mention that the co-creator of the Pill also says it's been a catastrophe!), that the Holy Mother Church is also very concerned with Gaza and the plight of all people there, including the mostly-forgotten Christians, that schooling is a changing area of culture between school choice and homeschooling, and that there is unrest in California over Proposition 8 and that there are those who would seek to impose their will on the state and her people despite the vote.  Oh, yes, and that whole thing with the politics in Illinois.  But is that really news, or just same-old, same-old?
• Yes, the news can be depressing when you pay attention to it.  Thank goodness for Uncle Jay!  I'm saving up a few of his posts from late last year to watch later.  
• Apple Hot News is the place to get your real news on Apple (as opposed to rumors, which don't always pan out to be true, you know).  They also offer hot tips on apps that are interesting (like this grocery one) and neat things you can do to make it easier to do stuff with your Mac.
• LOLCats (I Can Has Cheeseburger?) are always good for a laugh, and I really liked this one, cuz I can really relate.
• McSweeny's (sorry, can't recall who pointed that out) is hysterical.  Here's one of the latest, Kids' Letters to Obama.

And that's it.  Now I've cleaned out my Bloglines and dumped it all here!  Just like the kids clean their room.  Get it out from under the bed, dump it in the closet, and close the door!

Easy-peasy!

New Header

Yeah, baby!  I love my iMac!  The new header is the result of Pages '08 plus iPhoto plus preview, which allows me to save a PDF as a JPG file.

And that means I can upload it to the site and get the snazzy new header.

Year in Review

The Darwins had this up, and I thought it was interesting.  Review my year by posting the first sentence of the first post of each month.  Pictures are optional (so I skipped it).  If you want to play along, just leave a comment with a link to the post in the comboxes.

*****************************

~~2008~~

January:

I once heard Mother Angelica say that if you're Catholic, people ought to be able to tell when they walk into your house.

February:

Last year, some clever Catholic blogger gave a history of the ties between Groundhog Day (the day, not the movie) and Candlemas (also known as the Dedication of Our Lord, 40 days after His birth).

March:

Ugh.

April:

I'm still a little wired from class (though I'm about to fall dead asleep at any moment, I think), so I thought I'd finally get to the two tags I had from Sunny.

May:

I remember looking at the historic graveyard in Toms River, NJ, and reading a tombstone that read:

View me now
As you pass by
As you are now
So once was I
As I am now
So you must be
Prepare for death

And follow me

June:

From Good, Clean Funnies today:

A man bought a donkey from a preacher.

July:

Sunday afternoon, as we were getting ready to continue with Weekends with Will, Little Girl asked me, "Mommy, why do you stop the story in the middle and talk about what it means?"

August:

The hyperbole in the caption here is just laughable!

September:

Today's "You Know You're Catholic When" Moment...brought to you by The Crescat.

October:

Another picture from our hike on the Shenandoah Parkway.

November:

I have been undergoing a change lately. 

December:

Theme: Creation

God createth Heaven and Earth, and all things therein, in six days.

*****************************

Cloud of Words

I saw this at the Anchoress site and thought it was interesting.

Create your own here.

Update: 12-30-2008:  It might help if I actually uploaded the picture, eh?  Here's another, which might be easier to read:

What Jesse Tree? Oops!

It's been a heck of a day, and I only realized this afternoon that I haven't gotten up this week's Jesse Tree posts in advance. My apologies, and I hope to remedy that tomorrow.  Today was the last dance class before Christmas, and though I'm working 30 hours this week before Friday's bedtime, I'll have big blocks of time in the afternoons when I can bake cookies and catch up on pictures, the Christmas letter, and those Jesse Tree posts.  

Tune in tomorrow!

Light to Non-Existent Blogging Ahead!

We'll be headed to South Dakota for an early Thanksgiving on Wednesday night.  So, be good while I'm gone, kiddies.  Don't throw any big parties.  ;)

OOPS!

I forgot to mention that I was changing my URL for the Soccer Mom site.  If you came here looking for it, try me at http://catholicsoccermom.blogspot.com instead!  All my content stayed the same, but the old URL doesn't work any more.

Sorry I did it without saying so first!




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Important Prayer Request

Please keep my aunt (the one who paints the icons*) in your prayers.  She is okay now, but was in a very serious accident at the beach and will be having a very long and painful recovery.  She had surgery yesterday (the last of the really scary stuff), and did well.  Our family had prayed that the doctors' hands would be guided by the Lord, and the Lord delivered for us.  (Alleluia!)  But now the hard stuff begins.


*Note: I updated that icon post from last week to fix the problem with the pictures.  I finally realzied that I was trying to post the pictures from my logged-in address rather than the public gallery I have set up.  Sorry!  But please do go look at them.  Her icons are really beautiful!

Template: Again

How's this?




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Template Update

I decided to update the background of my blog, and I might even change the sidebar background if I can come up with something that isn't too busy.  I used the photograph of the crab apple tree that I just uploaded to my CafePress store.  

Hope you like it! 




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Hawkin' My Wares

I'd been meaning to update my CafePress shop with some new pictures. I've got the Pro Life gear in one shop, but I also have a shop that is mostly stationery and such with some of my garden pictures that I've taken.


If you like any of these, and want to see more (or even get some pretty notecards or calendars and such), then just click the link in the button for CafePress.










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Viewing Thursday, Funeral Friday

Needless to say, I won't be posting for a few days.  I'm leaving for Texas tomorrow before sunrise.  I'll see you when I get back next week.




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1000

Just wanted to be official. This is the 1000th post on Domestic Vocation. :)





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Playing on Blogger

Blogger has a "Blogger Draft" that you can play with and add neat-o widgets. I added a few on the sidebar, and one includes sports' scores, whic makes it convenient for the Soccer Family, who actually really enjoy all sports except soccer and hockey. (Of course, we love to watch Big Girl play! But hers is the only soccer team we like.)

Anyhoo...the widgets are fun, and if you stop by the blog (come out of the Bloglines!), please comment and let me know what you think.

Thanks!





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Music Video on the Way

I just finished a video for something I've been wanting to do for a long time. So ... I'll be posting it here just as soon as it finishes loading up onto YouTube. (Apple's iMovie '08 will do that automatically for you if you want. It's really quite cool!)

Stay tuned!






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