Does a good husband make a good father?

I have been thinking about the following for a while now and would love some feedback. Of my friends, I’d say about half of them are married and about half of them are still single. What I have observed over the years is that a lot of times, we are seeking out a great partner—someone who will be good us as a spouse and in the back of our minds we wonder what kind of parent they would be, but really have no way of knowing for sure.

I never really thought much about it when I saw folks getting married over the past several years, but I think about it more now that I see people having kids.

Does a good husband necessarily make for a good father? Does a good father necessarily make for a good husband?

I know that the answer to both questions above is sadly, no. What a disappointment that must be if you wind up with one and not the other. Which is more important at the end of the day? Should a woman be willing to sacrifice having a great husband for the sake of her kids? Should a woman have to bear the brunt of playing the role of both parents if her husband is a good husband but isn’t the greatest dad or disciplinarian we’ve ever seen? (Guys, of course this all goes for wives too, I’m just speaking from my point of view.)

Do you ever really get both--a great husband and a great father? It’s a valid question, I think, and something to think about. I have been, more and more…

Grey's Anatomy

Am I the only person on God's earth who could not care less about Grey's Anatomy?

Call me prudish if you will, but does no one else think twice about the fact that a nation full of women (and some men, for that matter) are rallying around a man who cheats on his wife (I do realize his wife cheated on him too, as I heard someone try to justify it on the radio this morning, but when did two wrongs start making a right?)? Not to mention the rest of the characters!

Are we all flawed? Of course!

Should we not judge? No!

But should we choose to rally around dysfunction? Should we make heroes out of adulterers?

That's my question for a Friday. I am sure some of you watch the show and if you enjoy the show, that's fine and I respect that. I am just curious about how you see things on the larger scale...

Does this mean I want us to go back to the days of Lassie? Not at all, but I just wouldn't classify an adulterer as "McDreamy..."

Random odds and ends (part 4)

I am a busy bee at work while I am trying to take care of as much as possible with the rest of my staff before E and I head to Chicago. Part of that is because right after the Chicago trip I have a day of rest and then I am heading to LC and DJs. On top of it, trying to motivate E to think about what he wants to do during our down time in Chicago is no easy task. He's far more laid back than I am.

While visiting LC and Darryl, LC is taking me to a Yankees game. It will be my first Yankees game ever. LC, on the other hand, is a die-hard fan. She has had season ticket packages for a number of years, although, as we get older and our responsibilities have become greater, she has subsequently gotten ticket packages for fewer total numbers of games. LC has already informed me that she never leaves games early (I tend to get bored easily) and that since it’s now Fall it likely will not be too warm sitting there all that time so I should be fine (she knows I despise being hot). This lady knows me very well. The upside is that LC is willing to talk during baseball games, so I won’t have to sit quietly. It will actually be great alone time for us to sit and catch up on everything we have going on with no Darryl (and that’s no offense to Darryl at all, but it’s nice to have “girl time!”)

LCs sister Robin also just gave birth to her second daughter on Sept 12 (the same day as Britney Spears’ new baby!), so I will get to meet the baby while she is still “brand new!”

I’d like to ask for everyone to keep Linda in prayer as she begins to look for a new job. She recently resigned from her current job, which offered her a pretty bad work environment where communication was low on everyone’s priority list, unfortunately. We also should pray for Jarred, who is on the verge of being diagnosed with strep throat for the third time in a relatively short period of time. If it is indeed strep, the doctor said they will want to take out his tonsils.

Helping new Catholics/Helping myself

I am helping out with the RCIA program at my parish this year and we met for the first time on Monday. RCIA stands for Rite for the Initiation for Christian Adults and is the process that interested individuals undertake to become a Catholic. It’s a fairly long process; the amount of time a person will have to attend RCIA really depends on the person and the priest or other person teaching the classes.

Most people (at least in my parish) who begin RCIA now will be able to become a member of the Church at the Easter Vigil mass next year (provided they are not waiting for annulments, etc). This year, so far, we have two women who were baptized and received first Holy Communion, but who were never were confirmed; so no real "converts." We’ll see who else comes on board before our pastor closes the class for new people in October or so. I have long admired people who convert to Catholicism because they "choose" it and they wind up being very knowledgable due to the process and the study.

My pastor is teaching the classes and I really enjoy listening to him. He knows the teachings of the Church and Church history VERY well and is a good teacher. Although I already know a lot of what he is teaching I really feel like I can’t hear it enough. It ingrains it more in my mind and helps to make my discussing it with others easier and more natural. God willing, I will be attending the class every Monday. My friends Cathi and Terry are attending the class as well (Terry has helped with RCIA for the past several years) and I think my main function will wind up just being another “student” to help the two women taking the class who don’t know anyone or perhaps don’t know a lot about the Church feel more comfortable. One of the women in the class is around my age, so I think it may help her to see someone her own age is a part of this as well.

I am happy to report that I have essentially totally cleared my schedule for this weekend so that I can catch up on needed rest. I had meetings every night this week and we have a youth group meeting with the teens on Sunday night so I need my time to decompress and stop having to “think” and “do.” As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I have been struggling with being spread a little too thin recently and have been making some decisions about what leadership roles I need to let go of in order to be able to have “me” time. I have let appropriate parties know, so I should slowly start to see a sense of normalcy return. Whatever that is!

Have a great weekend everyone! God bless you.

Skiing (or lack thereof)...

Today’s post was borne out of the fact that I woke up around 4am this morning (I fell back to sleep within a half hour) and this funny memory came into my mind. Steph will enjoy it because she was a part of it.

I have only skied once in my life. It was my sophomore year of college and a group of us went with a day trip sponsored through our campus.

I had never skied before and neither had Steph. Therefore, once we got all of our gear we took the little lesson they give all of the beginners. It did not do us much good because right after the lesson, as we tried to “walk” away on our skis, we both immediately fell down. We lay in the snow, on our backs like two turtles, and just laughed and laughed. We laughed so hard that we could not get up. People just proceeded to go around us and ignore us, but then finally, one of the guys on the trip with us came up to us (his name was Sergio) and looked at us with a look of disgust/pity and helped us both get back on our feet/skis.

We finally managed to get to the ski lift, which we took to the top of the bunny mountain. As any of you who ski know, when you get to the top of the mountain the lift just kind of “drops” you off. Well, when we got dropped off the two of us wound up on our butts again, laughing and laughing. People getting off of the lift that were behind us had to maneuver themselves around us. What a disaster we were, but I really remember just laughing so hard I was crying.

Luckily, we managed to get ourselves up that time and then we approached the top of the mountain. For me, my first run was total trial by fire because as I stood at the top of the slope, looking down, I began to slide down the mountain and I just wound up “skiing” (if you can even call it that), screaming at the top of my lungs, down the mountain. I was completely out of control. After the first hundred feet or so, I fell, both skis came off, my poles flew in opposite directions, and my earmuffs flew in another. I looked like Charlie Brown when Lucy pulls away the football as he’s trying to kick it and he flies in the air and everything flies off of him and he winds up in his underwear.

I gathered everything up, put it back on, and proceeded down the mountain for another hundred feet until the same thing happened again. I proceed to do this the entire way down the mountain until I reached the bottom. I had no idea where Stephanie was at that point!

I eventually got a little better as the day went on, but never enjoyed myself. I don’t like the “out of control” feeling. Funny thing is, I did snowboard years later, and I did like that more—I think because I had both feet on one board as opposed to two feet on two!

Back to school time!

Here is a cute back-to-school picture of my very good friend that lives in Ohio--he's the son of my other very good friend Trish--both of whom you've read about before. He was very excited for the first day of school, as you can see!

I LOVE this time of year--when the heat starts to subside and it gets darker earlier. I love it!

I was wondering if any of you are familiar with downtown Chicago, and if so, if you could recommend a restaurant for E and I when we are there at the end of the month. I have been to Chicago a handful of times for business over the years, but never really in the actual "downtown" area. Let me know!

Itsy bitsy spider...

You know what I realized, dear readers? No offense, but I’m not doing this blog thing for any of you. I’m doing this for me and the Lord.

That said, I am back and I got great news that Jim’s mom is on the mend and that, in fact, her lung is in even better shape than it was when she first entered the hospital. Thank you for your prayers.

When Jim e-mailed me that good news, he also e-mailed me this experience he had with a spider the other day. I asked him if I could share it with you all and he said yes. It’s something to think about. So, in his own words, here we go:

I was sitting outside doing work since my computer was not working right and I had to do the work the old way of paper and pen. As I was sitting there working I saw this spider start to make his web. Every so often I would stop working and watch him make his web. It got to the point where I just stopped working and was just watching him and it was just so fascinating to watch and I thought how smart because he was making the web right by the light where the bugs were flying around. He finished up and the web was perfect. Then he took his spot in the middle. Ok so back to work I go.

But then a group of 3 pine needles fell into his web and he got scared and backed off, but went back to the center of the web... Then after a minute he slowly started to go down to where they landed and I thought howsad that his web was damaged and that he was stupid because I thought he was trying to spin a web around them thinking they were food but then I noticed that he was trying to get them off the web.

They were about 4 times his size but he kept working on them and moving them and then I saw him cut part of the web and after a bit they fell from the web and he went back to the center of the web and I was thinking “why are you not fixing the web you stupid bug. You have a couple of big holes in your web.” So again back to work because I was annoyed at the spider and was not going to give it any more attention.

Now I saw from the corner of my eye the spider going back to where the holes were and he was fixing them. He fixed them and the web looked great again and you couldn't really tell there were ever holes...

I learned something from this spider.... Life, to me, is made up of all connections and how each part of life is built on the life lived right before it. Just as each part of a web. But what got me was that when the pine needles fell in he took a bit of time, saw that they didn’t belong and got rid of them.

He had no problem doing it.... He didn't think and think about it... That is something that we should do with our lives. When we see that something really doesn't belong there anymore or it is causing problems we should go right to where the problem is, face it, and if need be cut it out of our life. It can be anything, maybe a habit that isn't good, a bad relationship, something that takes us from God, pulls us from our faith, whatever...

Then he didn't just fix the broken part of the web but first went back to the center and then fixed it. We need to do the same.. We need to go back and center ourselves after something or someone cause a problem or when we feel our life is broken. Go, center ourselves with God and crew . Then go and deal with what part of our life that is in need of repair. Just as the web could be fixed, so can our lives. We just have to center ourselves and then go to fix and heal what is needed.

You never know when you may learn a lesson about life but, as I found tonight, it doesn't always come from a book but by just living a life and not closing yourself off from it, lessons can be learned..

Taking a breather...

I've decided that I'm going to take a breather from posting in order to give you guys a chance to think about and catch up on the last few posts. "Being the person you want to marry" alone should have sparked something--whether you're married or single!!

I'm just simply not getting the "back and forth" I am hoping for here and am feeling frustrated. The relationship just isn't reciprocal. I'm feeling used :)

Everyone loves the blog, but only 3 people post comments. Come on secret readers--you know who you are. Let's give it a try folks! All of my readers are very intelligent thinkers. Give me something to think about...

Wasting our time...

My friend Jim called me on Friday night and we spoke for a couple of hours. I hadn’t talked to him in a while and we caught up all the way around. All was well.

Then, on Saturday, I received a text message from him that his mother had a heart attack and was taken away in an ambulance. As of right now she is stable but she may need to have a portion of one of her lungs removed. Please keep her in your prayers.

Things can change very quickly. When things do change, it’s often just that way—very quickly. Do you ever think about that? The crazy things that alter our lives are very rarely the things that we think will happen. The million or so “what if” scenarios that we play out in our minds very rarely, if ever, come to fruition. It’s the things that suddenly occur on a random Thursday that catch us totally off guard and throw us into a tailspin.

If this is the case, then why do we worry so much? If the things that we worry about so rarely come to pass, then why do we continue to waste so much time?

When I figure out the answer to this I will let you know. If you know the answer, please share it with the rest of us!

Give yourself a break!

I am very much looking forward to some rest and relaxation this weekend, and the rainy, windy, and cool weather we are expecting will only help support me in my efforts. I am a very busy lady on the day to day. I have a full-time career by day. When I am not working, among other things, I am very tied to my parish, helping with RCIA (a new endeavor of mine!), being a youth group leader, being an extraordinary minister of holy communion at mass sometimes, attending my weekly hour of adoration, etc. On top of this, I need to find time to squeeze in at least some physical activity, errand running, dinners with friends to catch up, etc.

Why am I listing out my calendar of events for you? Because last night I simply went and got a haircut. After work I drove to the new salon that my friend Liz works at and I got a haircut. That’s it--nothing earth shattering, just something nice for me. After the haircut I went home. No errands to run, nothing to go pick up. I got changed into my PJs and sat in front of the TV and literally had a great time.

Despite what the world may tell us about being "active" and "on the go" and "out and about" and fabulous, regular rest and relaxation are needed--not suggested, but necessary. We all need a day of rest, a Sabbath. Because if we give and give and we never recharge then we will not have anything left to give. Our tank will be on "empty." Sometimes I feel guilty if I lay around. Sometimes I wonder why I don’t have anything to do on a particular day (completely ignoring the fact that the other 6 days of the week I was running around like a lunatic). More and more I find myself saying YAY when I have nothing to do. More and more I realize that I need to allow myself to receive as much as I give, even though I hate receiving and am often uncomfortable with it. We all need to give ourselves a much needed break whenever we need one (and even when we don’t “need” one). Let’s spend this Labor Day weekend completely allowing ourselves to rest, relax, recover, recharge, and anything else with an “r” you want to do :)