Waiting for Patience

I have a list of pet peeves a mile long. Anyone who knows me in real life could tell you that the littlest things can bother me. It’s mostly things that other people do that are inefficient and therefore bother me, but some of these are real things. For instance, not driving with your lights on when it’s raining or even foggy. This is one of my biggest driving pet peeves. It’s actually the law. I always think that the police should pull these people over. BUT then a few months ago I was driving and saw a car without its lights on in the rain and was telling them from my car to turn them on and I noticed it was a police officer IN a police car. I guess they don’t pull people over because they, themselves, have no idea that this is the law!! I don’t consider this driving tick rude though – it’s just ignorant to other drivers and endangering other people’s safety! That’s all. Today I’m writing about what I believe is the rudest thing one stranger can do to another stranger becaus...

What is your favorite love story? How did your favorite real-life couple meet? Which fictional love stories (from books, movies, plays, or songs) make your heart soar? What’s your favorite love story from the Bible? I know it's Saturday and I'm writing for our Tuesday post ... but hey, it's my blog and I can do what I want! I'm sure Lindsay won't mind that I'm linking up late. Check out the other Love Story roundups over at the Lovely Lindsay's! I'm a romantic comedy junkie. I love when everything turns out great in the end and the good guy and the good girl get together and live happily ever after. I know that most of the time (ie: ALL of the time) that's not real life. There's no hard work put in after marriage - sometimes, the movie ends when they finally have a first kiss - think You've Got Mail  (with two of the most beautiful people :: Tom & Meg). But I still love them. My favorite Rom-Com of all time is Yours, Mine,...

How ready do you think you are for your vocation? Are you ready to be committed to your vocation within the next year, or two years? That means being married (and maybe with a baby), taking religious vows, or telling people you’re not interested in marriage and plan to remain single for life. What do you still need to work on or change about yourself before you’re ready? Have you thought you were ready before? How have you become better prepared over time? Married ladies can chime in, too: how did you know it was the right time to get hitched? Linking up with the ladies in the Not Alone Series this week as it's been way, way too many weeks. This group has been such an amazing help to me in the past few years with the amazing friends that I've met and the support system that they have become. This seems like a good topic to enter back into the writing mood and linking up with the group. A few questions in this week's prompt strike me. Let's begin with Have you...

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...

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...

Have you ever had people in your life who have expectations of what your life is like, as a single person? Do friends or family ever make assumptions about your life simply because you're unmarried? Did you ever have expectations about being single which turned out to be different than the reality? How do you manage the expectations of others with the reality of your day-to-day? Boy I have a LOT of thoughts on this ... hopefully they will be written coherently and not all over the place! There are two questions here: Do I have expectations of what the single life is? AND Do others place expectations on me because I'm single? Although I think the prompt is really getting at the latter, the former is more of a big deal for me right now and has been on the last fifteen years of my life. So I will get the easy one out of the way and then deal with the more difficult. Do other people have expectations of me? Yes, of course - I have them of others. Do they interfere ...

We're more than half way through Lent... how's it going?! What did you decide to give up/take up? Did you make any spiritual goals? How have you grown thus far and how do you hope to make the most of the remainder of the season? I missed last week for the link-up (and a bunch of blogging / writing stuff) because St. Joseph's been kicking my butt with his response to this month's Novena! More details to come, but prayers for courage and patience from y'all would be much appreciated. I am back this week and excited to talk about penance - well, not really - but happy to discuss Lent. Last year my Lenten sacrifices were much greater than this year. I went to Mass on Ash Wednesday and then promptly gave up my cell phone, got on a plane to a country with only one flushing toilet and a serious lack of electricity and went from there. When I came back to the US, I gave up coffee for the remaining of Lent which was really difficult with the jet lag and overall...

We seem to always have something say about guys treating us right! Or, not right! But, what does that mean? Have you ever thought to share those insights so guys have a better idea on what to say/how to act? Well, let's do it! What are some good habits guys can take up when dealing with us ladies? Well, we've talked about Chivalry before. I just reread that post yesterday because I was looking at my blog stats and noticed that it is my most read post. I thought, "what made that so good?" But if you remember it, or clicked over just before getting to this sentence, you'll remember that I was talking about a priest friend of mine who was so kind to me when we last got together (and always has been).  Last week I had a similar experience when I did some errands with Fr. C (our associate priest) to prepare for an event we were having with the 20s & 30s of the parish with our new Aquinas' Finest  efforts. Such a gentleman. I think these are skills...

We've all likely heard about them, but have you ever done one? If so, what was your experience? If you haven't, would you consider doing one? Why or why not? Okay so I realize that the purpose of this topic is not the speed at which we date. But what if it was? Then I would say fast ... as long as the rules of discernment are being followed. The point of a dating fast, like what Brenda over at Triple Braided Life  talked about in January , is to deliberately take a break from dating to grow closer to the Lord and deepen your faith. The point is deliberately , right? I've been doing this a lot minus the deliberate part, so I can't say that I've intentionally done a dating fast. I can see how it would be important for the culture we live in since there are so many crazy things that single people are expected to do and be. I think it's important to be deliberate  and intentional  in our dating. Why? Because it's preparation for the biggest dec...

--- 1 --- This has been the uneventful eventful week. Why you ask? Well yesterday was a snow day (and I still didn't write my quick takes or even work on the future weeks of the Latin & Me series, ugh! So it was eventful in the morning to make the declaration that there would be no events that day. I type that out and it's so ridiculous I should probably delete, but I won't because I don't have too much to say on this chilly, snow free morning! --- 2 --- Another installment of my journey toward the more traditional roots of the Church published yesterday . I wrote about how I started receiving communion kneeling rather than standing. One of the comments was that the EMCs at her parish have a really hard time giving communion on the tongue and are even sometimes confused. I can definitely relate. This is why, whenever possible, I try to get in the line for the priest. They seem to be the only ones who can get it right all of the time! No offense to anyone...

How do you travel as a single lady?! Any tips or tricks you'd like to share? Do you have anything fun planned for this year? Multiple times per week when I'm brushing my teeth in the morning I think about how boring my life is, how I never go anywhere. To be honest that is a complete and utter lie. I mean between July 2013 and March 2014, I hung out on four different continents - let along the time I spent traveling around the U.S. to Denver, New York City, Savannah, Orlando, and my parent's place. I'm the girl who bought a plane ticket to Africa and went into the bush all alone. (it's a great story ) Let me type that again - I went to the Congo, alone! I still can't even believe that I did that - it's the craziest thing ever ... but the most amazing experience of my life. So my off the cuff tips for traveling alone, they aren't super original, so be prepared to be underwhelmed! If you want to go somewhere, just do it - buy the ti...

--- 1 --- Well I missed the link-up with the Not Alone Series Gals  this week, so I'm going to write about my Spiritual Reading books for my Quick Takes and make this a Double Take! Prompt: What are some of your favorite or go-to books, devotionals or even blogs that help encourage you in your spiritual life? I don't know how great I'll be at giving suggestions, but I do have a few in my mind to share about, so here goes nothing... --- 2 --- I've written about this book before , but in recent memory it's been very helpful. Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence . The author discusses suffering a lot and how we get to where we are in the Spiritual Life. Some areas are a lot to take in, that all things are necessary and desired by God for our good. That's hard to handle a bit when we are thinking about bad things that happen to us. Overall the Lord wills the good in our life - the good that will get us to Heaven to be with Him for eternal li...

We all have times when we feel alone. What are ways that you combat loneliness? Pray? Join a group? How can we encourage each other to stay positive? Thanks to Laura P ! This week's topic is loneliness. I have many thoughts on this subject, and many instances of feeling this feeling - they don't all really go together, so I'm just going to bullet point my thoughts and see what happens! When I bought my townhouse and starting living alone, I thought I would be lonely. And there are times when I wish I had someone to come home to at night, a shoulder to cry on, or a listening ear to let go of all the craziness of my day. But most days I'm actually glad for the quiet, for the peace, and for the ability to do yoga in the living room, watch three episodes of Jane the Virgin , and cook whatever I please without having to do someone else's dishes before starting. Most of the time, at home, I am alone, but not lonely. As all of my friends get married, buy houses, ...

What are the qualities and characteristics that you are looking for in your future husband? We have talked about what we don't want , but it's good to have an idea of those things that are important to us. Discerning religious life? This applies to communities, as well! This is a topic I think about all the time, if I'm being honest, too much really.  Since I was a little girl I've always wanted to be married and have children.  Now I'm almost (too close) to 30 and still unmarried and only have godchildren (lovely though).  I went back to look at the deal breakers post I wrote before and on the bottom I already listed what I'd like for in a marriage to recap: The men leads spiritually. The couple respects each other. Each spouse is trying to grow in virtue and they encourage each other. Since then and since having my house for a few months, I've come to have a few more qualities that I would like in a husband.  Nothing too specific, but I ...

Do you have children in your life? What is your relationship with them like? Do you have godchildren, and how do you form a relationship with them? Does having children in (or not in) your day-to-day life make you feel happy, wistful, or wary (of having your own someday)?  Thanks to Lindsay ! love this pic from Jen, so borrowing for the day! I've been looking forward to this topic since coming back from the break - and then I just chilled on the couch last night (and Monday) instead of writing because I'm tired of computers most of the time!  But anyway - the children are my favorite topic! When I was a little girl all I wanted to be when I grew up was a mom or a teacher.  I was always playing house with my baby dolls (most of them are still in my parent's attic) and pretending to be a mommy.  I still look forward to the day when I can be a mom and have lots of little ones running around my house! Lucy B, one of the many kiddos on my favorites lis...

How are we going to make 2015 different than last year? What goals are you planning/making to be more YOU this year? These can be goals can be personal growth, spiritual life, physical/health, or even your love life! Maybe you don't have concrete ones yet, but it helps to talk them out and get motivated! Well I don't have a ton of concrete 2015 goals and also feel like I've already discussed them on this little blog a few times ( here and here ), but not explicitly so I will outline a few things. 1. I want to make a greater effort in deepening my friendships.  Sometimes I can get kind of lazy in friendships and don't make a good effort in keeping in touch, getting together often, or sharing important things - keeping good friendships closer to the surface rather than revealing myself.  To help achieve this goal we are beginning First Saturday Dinners - a time for us all (ladies, spouses, and kiddos) to get together, catch up on the past month, enjoy some go...