Life Rushing By

For the past few weeks I've been feeling like life is just rushing by and I'm trying to keep up. I've spent most days with my head in a fog and my body seriously dragging. I finally surrendered and called the doctor. I had a sinus infection, but also have developed some allergies that have really "cramped my style." So now I'm taking a crazy amount of medicine.... but feeling much better and attempting to "get up to speed."

Yesterday I was telling someone that I really hadn't done a thing over the past week. I was thinking about the fact that I pretty much collapsed into bed as soon as I could every night. But as I thought more about it I realized that I had indeed done just a few things, including but not limited to: attending a way-over-the-top party with Jon (for one of his clients), taking a van-load of kids to the symphony, keeping up with the regular school/chores/karate/pottery/Saint Lad's routine, taking the boys for flu shots, helping my mom with errands/meals/house stuff, shopping for Cub Scout uniforms, and surviving the roller coaster election as a voter in a swing State...... OK, so that's a bit more than "nothing." I guess it's ok to feel tired.

Lots of people around me were living in sadness, anger, and fear after the election. I felt those things too.... but my throbbing head and incessant coughing kept it from hitting me too deeply. In the end I just kept reminding myself that God is God and He is in control. Thank you God. I kept reminding myself that this is the Year of Faith (declared by the Holy Father). We are called to practice our faith more boldly... to strengthen it... to depend on Him more fully. We must. So often God has to really "strike me down" to get me to grow in this area. So many bloggers wrote beautiful things this week to encourage us. The most simple and perhaps most wise advice I read was here. We have to LOVE right here, right now. We need to make our homes sanctuaries and love our families well.  That focused me and helped me not be overwhelmed by the bigness of the problems in the world and in my head.

So..... here are a few random pictures of what we've been up to ---

Our photo booth shots from the big party Jon and I attended. It was an 80's theme --- our era! We had our pictures taken with characters from Back to the Future and Ghostbusters. We saw an amazing Michael Jackson impersonator. We had great food and we danced! All on a Monday night!

Jon took Adam to his first OSU football game!
They had a great time!

 

Adam's favorite part of the game was watching the marching band!

And he loved playing on these giant numbers outside the stadium.

 

 

Raking... Raking... Raking
The weather was awesome this weekend.
We did tons of yardwork.
Jon even had Adam up in a tree trying to shake down the rest of the leaves.

We enjoyed a really great symphony concert at the Ohio*Theater.
The funny thing about this picture is that Ray looks so miserable.
He is actually the one who enjoyed the concert the most.

Every Catholic kid plays Mass at some point, right?
This was honestly the first time my boys ever have.
They were so cute.
Adam was the very devout altar boy.
Ray was the very bossy priest.

I'm saving these pictures to show at their ordinations some day!



And lastly... the cats are growing up fast!
They are into everything and insist on being part of all that goes on around here.
Christmas should be interesting!
 

That's all for now. I hope to be back here more regularly now that things are getting back to "normal" around here. Have a great week!