Part of the reason for the last post, I think, was fatigue and possibly a reaction to too many days of rain. I did cry a bit during my Holy Hour and I talked to my husband before that. He said there are miracles in our lives and that God has “moved heaven and earth for us.” He reminded me of people who had to pray for years to see God’s response. He talked a lot about Abraham and I kept thinking about Saint Monica who prayed for the soul of her son for 30 years while watching him continue in an immoral and hedonistic lifestyle. Of course, her son eventually turned to God and became of our greatest saints, Saint Augustine.

I let the world get to me. I think part of the problem there is I’ve let my spiritual life stagnate a bit. I have been coasting along, figuring I was okay with everything, but I wasn’t praying more than our family’s evening prayer which often end up sounding like a recitation of the same words over and over each night.I wonder sometimes if we really realize we’re supposed to be praying. Anyway, I need to get back to praying a rosary every day. It’s a good place to start this journey back to where I need to be.

Yesterday, I had my first meeting as President of HeartLA. We had 18 people there, an amazing turnout. Our publicity person, Jo, did a great job in getting the word our about our chapter. I think we may have picked up one or two new members! Fabulous!

Our chapter is having a writing challenge this year, so while I’m editing Sword & Illusion, I’m going to start a new book, Gingerbread Hearts, which I hope can go to either Harlequin Romance or maybe Avalon. We’ll see.

Thanks for all the comments on Friday’s post!

I really kinda hesitate to write this post, but I need to let out some of the feelings I’ve been having today.

First of all, I found out this morning that our bank balance wasn’t good and wasn’t what I had expected to see. Money issues always throw me into a tizzy, I really don’t know why. I always feel like it’s my fault and I panic when something goes wrong. Today was no exception.

Now, if you’ve read this blog much (and few people do), I hope you’ve seen by now that I consider myself a devout Catholic Christian. However, today I’ve begun to question a lot of basic beliefs and frankly, it scares me.

I listen to KLOVE radio, a nationwide Christian station. The songs are very positive and full of praise. There’s this one song, “Call on Jesus” that usually makes me feel better. Today, it was the catalyst for my questions.

The chorus goes:

But when I call on Jesus
All things are possible
I can mount on wings like eagles and soar
When I call on Jesus
Mountains are gonna fall
‘Cause He’ll move heaven and earth to come rescue me when I call

The thing is: I don’t see Him moving heaven and earth to help me.

Years and years ago, before I became Catholic, before I even knew my husband, when I was in college, I attended a couple of Christian Fellowship meetings on campus. It wasn’t my style, but the thing I remember is that one after another people, 20-somethings, married, would get up and talk about how when they were broke and desperate, some kind of miracle would occur. They’d need $500 for rent or something and BAM an anonymous gift of $600 would appear in their mailbox and the next day they’d need $100 for a doctor bill or something. God is amazing! He knew exactly what they would need even better than they did!

I’ve heard stories like this over and over and over as I’ve gone through my Christian walk, and you know what, it’s never happened to me. I spend an hour every Saturday morning from midnight to 1 am in front of the Blessed Sacrament, usually wnen I’m so tired I would rather be in bed. I pour out my heart to Jesus about what it bothering me, the problems in our home, and I don’t see miracles. I don’t see healings or windfalls or mountains and earth being moved to help us.

I see us trying to figure a way out of the problem.

Today I went to the bank, got a cash advance on one of our credit cards and deposited that. It wasn’t a miracle from God. It was a high interest loan from a credit card company.

Our son hit kids at school yesterday and today. What happens to the prayers of his mother for help with his behavior? I think they hit the ceiling of the bedroom and fall to the floor.

I’m going to be 50 in a few years. This is a time of life for most people when they start to be financially able to help their children and start to feel like their lifetime of labor has started to pay off.

Not us. We still haven’t completely paid off the roof we put on our house last year, almost exactly a year ago. My daughter and I both need new glasses and contacts as it’s hard for her to see the blackboard at school and I can’t read the guide on the television from chair anymore. I don’t know how we can afford this. Every day there’s more and more money leaving the house and NOTHING coming in except once a month when my husband gets paid. The bills are always more than we expect and I feel like I’m in a deep, deep hole with no way out.

I talked to the preschool principal yesterday and she said that there are 15 kids a year older than Noah who will be starting kindergarten in the fall so it’s not unusual for kids to wait a year before moving on. She said if he has to repeat kindergarten he’ll actually be repeating whereas “repeating” preschool means he does move on in what he’ll be learning. There is a pre-K-5 class there.

I went to the school open house – which turned out to be two hours of mostly useless stuff to me – walking around the ENTIRE school facility (which is HUGE) and up and down stairs. My poor back was KILLING me. I only wanted to hear what the kindergarteners did and see the room. I did end up leaving when they said, “And now we’ll head over to the junior high wing.” Juliette isn’t even convinced Noah will be going to junior high in Baton Rouge as she’s sure we’ll move again before that happens.

The kindergarten is a full day – 8:15 or so to 3:20. Juliette arrives at our house from the bus after school at 3 pm, so I’d probably leave here right about then or just before to pick him up. Seems like a long day to me.

And the class room kinda worries me. There wasn’t a black spot on any wall or even the ceiling. I felt like I was in a “Where’s Waldo?” book. There were faces on the wall, not everything, but he’ll find lots to talk to, and I think while it’s not really clutter (see? FlyLady has penetrated a bit into this thick skull) it didn’t seem restful to me. I wonder if it will make him manic. Steve, who wasn’t there, thinks Noah will be fine. Maybe I’m just being a over protective mom.

Registration starts tomorrow to tonight we’ll talk about it. He sees the child psychologist (who his pediatrician who deal with ADD and ADHD recommended) the end of February. If we register, I guess the kindergarten teacher will screen him and see if she thinks he ready. Maybe he’d be fine, but when she said they have half an hour a day of quiet time on their mats, I thought, yeah, like that’ll happen!

Maybe by the end of this year his attention span will be a little longer. I just don’t know what the right thing to do is.

I’ve been trying my hardest to find some order in my life and household, so I’ve been reading a few blogs from moms who are more organized than I am. One of them is I’m an Organizing Junkie. She initiated “Meal Plan Mondays.”
This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, but being the perfectionist that I’m, I wanted to do it right. I wanted to have a specific kind of meal for each day of the week and I wanted to have — well, everything perfect.

I have a stack of Taste of Home and Quick Cooking (or whatever it’s called now, Simple and Delicious?) magazines in my kitchen, waiting for me to organize them. Well, this weekend, while I was stuck in the recliner because of my back, I decided to just go through them and tear out the recipes that looked promising. Then I selected some for the week, wrote out a grocery list and sent the Hubby out.

The plan was to try these recipes and the ones that got good reviews I would copy down on the cool recipe cards I make with my Stampin’ Up set and place in my cool recipe folder I made at a Hostess Club.

Saturday night I made Hash Brown Beef Pie (although with us it turned out to be Shoestring Potato Beef Pie instead of Hash Brown) from The Collectors Edition of Taste of Home. The Girl had just gotten home from a two day Drama Club Convention at Northwestern Louisiana University and she was starving. It was a hit. I’ll post the recipe later.

Last night was Colorful Keilbasa from that same issue. Again, rave reviews and no leftovers, which kinds stinks and tomorrow night was supposed to be leftover night!

Anyway, here’s my list for this week:

Monday – Spaghetti and Meatballs

Tuesday – Was Leftover, but now will be Canadian Bacon Pizza Loaf from May/June 2004 Quick Cooking (no pineapple on Juliette’s but extra peppers)

Wednesday – Crispy Chicken and Vegetable Rice Medley from Taste of Home (not sure of the issue since I tore it out)

Thursday – Broccoli Tuna Roll-ups from Jan/Feb 2005 Country Woman

Friday – Three Cheese Macaroni from Quick Cooking (agan issue date is missing)

I threw my back out, somehow, on Saturday, and today is the first day I’ve actually felt like doing anything. There are still some twinges in my back and right hip, but I can walk around and do some housework. I even cooked dinner tonight.

Whenever I get over one of these things, illness or something that keeps me out of commission for awhile, I always come back feeling all “nesty” like I have to clea everything and get everything back in order. Of course, it takes more than one day, and one day when I’m not 100%, to show any progress, but I did get a load of laundry done and cleared off the clutter from the kitchen table and got some work done for my writers’ group.

We’re teaching Natural Family Planning tomorrow night, so I have to get the dining table cleared of all my stamping stuff and the little penninsula in the kitchen cleared of the accumulated junk.

WRITING UPDATE:

Chapter Six of Sword & Illusion has been edited. Still plugging away. My chiropractor read Attack of the Queen and it dying for the second one, so I really need to get moving.

I’m working through First Draft in 30 Days with a new book, Gingerbread Hearts. I’m not sure I completely understand everything she’s suggesting, but I’m giving it a shot and we’ll see what happens.

KNITTING UPDATE:

No pictures as the Girl has the camera and apparently is keeping it hostage. I’ll get it back after the weekend. I’m still working on a pair of worsted weight cabled socks. I’m not sure I like the way the first one turned out, but I’ll finish them and wear them around the house. I put the first one on and it did keep my foot warm, so that’s all that’s necessary.

I’m making a hat for the husband. He said this morning that he has about a mile walk from where he has to park to get to his office and even though it’s Louisiana, it’s been pretty cold around here in the mornings, especially.

CROSS STITCH:

I’ve been working on the Boy’s Christmas stocking, but I lost my reading glasses and the linen is such a close weave it’s hopeless to try to stitch without them. I really need to make a new appointment at the eye doctor for both me and the Girl. We had one last week but my fever was back and I felt miserable.