Waiting for Patience

--- 1 --- Well, I promised I'd share some photos from my trip to Texas, so here we go! This is the view from my Aunt's porch. As soon as we got to the house on Tuesday, I had to sit outside and take in the view. I remember it being amazing, but it was even more incredible than I recalled! We spent a lot of time out here on the porch!  The fire and the View!   --- 2 --- One day we went into San Antonio to the Aquarium (not amazing), the oldest cathedral in Texas (beautiful), the riverwalk (lovely), and dinner at the Tower of Americas (delicious)! cute little sea horsies Just amazing - they have confession every day all day long! How cool! The view at dinner - from 63 stories up! Celebrating my birthday with Aunt Char & Uncle Joe --- 3 --- Another day we took a drive to see the wildflowers. It was like they bloomed just for me! They said it's been a few years since they've been so beautiful - and this year did not d...

Topic for this week is whatever we want, so I thought I'd write a little bit about a book I'm on a launch team for :: All Groan Up . I've been reading this guy's blog for a while now. It's full of funny, inspiring, and great content. I especially think about his explanation of OCD ... Obsessive Comparison Disorder. (not to diminish people with clinical OCD tendencies) I don't know about you, but I tend to look at someone else's life and compare and contrast to my own. However, I typically only see the ways that hers is better than mine, she has accomplished more of my goals than me, and is overall happier than I am. Objectively, I know this isn't true. The self we put on Facebook, Instagram, and even this little 'ole blog is our best self. I don't tend to write to you on the days when I'm practically having a nervous breakdown, crying my eyes out because I don't know what to do with my life, where I'm going, or if I'll ever...

What does it mean to be a friend based in Christ? Do Christian friends hold each other higher? Do we hold each other accountable? How do these friendships differ from non-Christian based friendships? Do they differ? Is one better than the other? Oh, Christian Friendship! How difficult to attain sometimes, but how necessary for life to go smoothly! In my opinion, anyway. I've been blessed to have many friends in my life, many fantastic friends in fact. I wouldn't have made it through High School with my faith intact without Stephanie, Erin, and Ashlei. We had an amazing opportunity to meet many friends from around the Diocese at a retreat called "TEC" - to encounter Christ and "JTE" Journey to Emmaus. I was blessed with some amazing experiences with these ladies and couldn't have made it without them. They were better than any other acquaintances I had during the same time in my life. Moving on to college, I had friends who were just as great...

I've been thinking about this topic for a while, knowing my own journey which I wrote about at length the past few months as well as where people are. While visiting with my family in Texas last week the subject came up again and I was silent because I'm not exactly sure how to articulate what I really think. I was saying how I prefer to attend Mass in the morning rather than Saturday evening vigil. There's nothing wrong with the Vigil, but for me, I like morning Mass - which is a new development in the last year - I used to sleep in and go at 5pm on Sunday evening. Don't get me wrong, I still love sleeping, but morning Mass is different than Sunday evening Mass. Anyway, someone said they prefer the Saturday vigil because it's more casual. They can come in their jeans, sneakers, t-shirts - no judgement if it's been a few weeks or months since they've been there. Overall more casual - and that frankly the Lord doesn't care what we where, just that we...

A couple weeks ago, we set to challenge ourselves! What did you decide on and what did you end up doing? Was this a fruitful experience for you? Why or why not? A few weeks ago the NAS topic was Challenges  - challenging ourselves to do more, something different, etc... I didn't write because I as I noted the week after St. Joseph had been kicking my butt with an answer to my novena intention. I'm sure you all know about the Pray More Novenas  reminders (but if not - totally check them out - it's an excellent way to increase your novena devotions). I've been receiving the emails for a while now and love the monthly devotions and new saints, novenas, and opportunities every month. In preparation for the Feast of St. Joseph (one stand up man), I began praying the St. Joseph Novena on March 10th with more than 70,000 of my closest novena loving friends. I have had a pretty strong devotion to St. Joseph for a while. In November of 2012 a very close friend was goi...