Easter Is Over! But It's Still Here, So Alleluia!

I spent Easter at Rosie's house as usual. In our family, them as has kids don't travel for holidays, so I always go to her house for big holidays. She trumps Patrick in terms of kids, because he has one and she has four. So far, anyway. I hope for more lovely grandchildren. :-D You can see pix of Rosie's family (and my socks) at her blog.

Once more, the lovely and talented Kendra has asked us all to chime in with our answers to some questions, which provides me with a blogging theme for today. Thanks very much, Kendra!

1. Do you hate happy clappy church music?

Mostly I do. There are some new-fangled hymns that I like, but mostly the syncopation and other weirdness drives me mad. I mean, it is apparently not even possible for accompanists to play and choir directors to conduct Be Not Afraid as written, and there are a bazillion ways to do it otherwise. This is painful for me, because I'm a prescriptivist when it comes to music that is written down, though I'm fine with performing it some other way if I'm told to do so. This makes it kind of a penance for me to sing at my parish's 10 o'clock Mass, but it's where God seems to have called me, so there you are.

2. What is your priority: eating or sleeping?

Sleeping. Definitely. Ohhhhhhhh man, I love to sleep!

3. What type of milk do you drink in your house?

These days, I mostly drink whole milk, because it is sooooo delicious and there is recent research that says it is better for you than skim. I would like to believe that. Also, I occasionally sneak cream as a beverage or cereal mix-in. Mmmmmmmm, fat. Allllllll the fat, to Rosie's dismay yesterday when I scarfed some ham fat that she had carefully sliced off the Easter ham.

 

4. What is a book that changed your perspective on something?

The Great Divorce by (St.) C. S. Lewis. Love that book. It seems to me to be the way things must or ought to be.

5. Who is your favorite saint?

Probably St. Christopher, who has been with me since my childhood and who is my confirmation saint. But I'm fond of many others. St. Maximilian Kolbe has an awesome story. There are others, too.

6. Introvert or extrovert?

Introvert all the way. I need lots of time alone to recharge. This can be a problem.

Now go read Kendra's blog post!

Far from Home

Two days ago, I got back from Indiana, where I left Thurber (the mastiff) to be bred. He was nervous about the trip and a different house and all the different people, but he was getting used to it all when I left. I miss him. ::sniff::

The trip out took two days of five hours each, which wasn't too bad. The scenery was wonderful, just the kind I like, until I got into flat flat flatness. Ugh. But until then, it was so much fun to see little roads paralleling the interstate and little houses on the roads. Sometimes the roads snaked up a hill and I couldn't see the houses to which they led, and I wanted to. They all looked so homey. Cities, not so much, of course, but there was more traffic near cities, so I had plenty to do besides look at little houses.

I stayed for a whole day at Thurber's breeder's house and then drove the full ten hours home, which was a looooong drive for me. Meg drives that kind of distance routinely, but I really don't like driving farther than about half an hour. Heck, if I had my druthers, I'd never leave home at all. I love my house and land so much!

It's just perfect weather right now—sixties and maybe even seventies most of the time. I should have been out preparing the pumpkin field, but I've been exhausted since I returned. I've taken three naps in two days, and I'm still tired. Maybe if I did more work outside, I'd feel less tired. Unfortunately, tomorrow I have a six-hour foster parenting class, so I doubt I'll be able to do much outside then.

In the meantime, here's a shot from last year. It has nothing to do with anything, but it's a picture, so you'll like it, right?

The Liebster, only not really

Kendra at Catholic All Year nominated a bunch of people for the Liebster Award and generously invited everybody who has a blog to share in the nomination. This is part of why people love Kendra. Well, it's part of why I do, anyway. And because I love procrastination even more than the next person, here's my response to her (lack of) nomination.

1. Where do you live? And why do you live there?
I live in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. My husband and I lived in northern VA for more than 20 years as a married couple, and we realized towards the end of it that we wanted more space and peace. So when our youngest child graduated from high school, we hightailed it out here to these lovely three acres.

2. What are you currently watching and/or reading?
Hmm. Mad Men season 6, I think it is. On Netflix. I'm thinking about getting rid of our cable TV, because I don't use it.

3. What kind of Catholic are you: cradle, or convert? (Or considering?)
Convert! I was baptized Methodist as a baby, confirmed Episcopalian at 10, and married my cradle Catholic husband intending never to become Catholic. God had another idea, but it wasn't clear to me until we had been married for 17 years.

4. Can you point to one moment or experience that made you a practicing Catholic? (Or want to be?)
God has used distinct words to speak to me three times in my life. The second time was when God told me it was time to become Catholic (see #3). I was annoyed, but I know that if you don't do what you know God wants you to do, you'll be sorry, so I joined RCIA when the classes started up a few months later.

5. How many pairs of shoes do you own?
Um. Well. That's kind of difficult. I'm still cleaning out a lot of mess in my house, so I have a lot of pairs of shoes that I still need to sort through and several in bags ready to be given away. For my own current use, maybe six pairs? Not sure.

6. Are you a good dancer?
Absolutely not. ::shudder::

7. Who usually drives, you or your husband?
I used to, because my husband started having accidents and then we decided that he wouldn't drive any more. Now he's dead, so he really isn't driving!

8. What's your favorite holiday and how do you celebrate it?
Augh! See, I am sooooo lazy ("How lazy are you?" the audience yells)—I am so lazy that I don't really like to celebrate any holidays. They all involve work, and where's the fun of that? 

9. Which is correct? Left or right?

Left. Absolutely left. People who do the thing on the right are going to hell. 

10. Do you have any scars?
You don't get to be as old as I am without scars! I have a smallpox vaccination scar, scars from some kind of weird dermatological thing that gave me itching sores for more than a year (never did find out what that was), a scar on my neck from a thyroglossal duct cyst removal, and probably some others I'm forgetting.

11. What's the most famous thing you've ever done? 
I can't think of anything I've done that's made me even remotely famous.

And there you have it, folks! Thanks again to the delightful Kendra for inviting all and sundry to post!