I Am Blessed

Hi everyone, 

This year my family from New Jersey came down to see me and for vacation. It was the first time in almost twenty years we were all in the same room at one time. Children grow into adults so quickly and before you know it they are off in all different directions. I think that's what made this vacation this year so incredible and so special. We ALL had an amazing time!! So much so that no one wanted to leave and there were tears when they did. It wasn't that we did so many activities with each other but it was that we spent really good quality time together just enjoying each other, talking laughing, remembering, wishing, hoping. It's been a couple weeks now that they have all gone home and are back to living their lives and I mine but, I miss them very much. Here are some of the photos we took. There were over four hundred photos' taken but these are just some of my favorites. I hope you enjoy my happiness. 

(back row) My youngest great niece Sofia (3) her dad my oldest nephew Billy, his wife Kim, my nephew Eric, my brother Bill, my sister in law Dorothy, my niece Jillianne, Billy's step daughters Savanah and Madison and my oldest great niece Billy's oldest daughter Olivia (5). 

This is my entire family. We may be small but we have big love. 

(Billy and his youngest Sofia)

(Myself and great niece number one, Olivia (5) )

(Myself and great niece number two, Sofia (2)

(Myself and my niece in law, Billy's wife, Kim)

 (Myself and my big strapping nephew Eric) 

Myself and my niece whom I adore, Jillianne

Myself and my big brother Bill.

Olivia and Sofia. These two little monkey's who I can't get enough of! 

Easy Like A Sunday Morning

(Myrtle Beach SC Aug 25th 2019)

I woke up this morning too late to attend Mass (will be heading to confession for sure this week). I wasn't feeling well last night and figured I wasn't going to be feel the greatest in the morning either. I didn't get out of bed until after Eight AM which is pretty unheard for me and as expected I wasn't feeling all that great.

I schlepped my way into the kitchen and put some coffee on. Mr was up already a few hours. While my coffee was brewing I gave breakfast to all the dogs. 

Mr and I were sitting at the dining room table talking over coffee as we usually do on Sunday mornings while I was filling his medication bottles for the week ahead. 

The weather this morning was unusually cool. Only Sixty Six when I got up , nice breeze and cloudy. Looked at my weather app and no rain just clouds all day. Suddenly I got it in my mind to get dressed and go to the beach. I just had this longing to put my toes in the sand and watch the ocean waves. I find watching the ocean extremely peaceful and relaxing. 

So that's what I did. Threw on some clothes, no makeup, Mr stayed home with the pups because Rosie (our 5 mos old GSD) is too young to be trusted home alone yet and off I went. Took me only twenty minutes to get to the beach and there I was.

My toes in the sand watching water. The Surf was rough this morning but it was so incredibly relaxing to me. When I look and listen to the ocean I don't think about anything. My thoughts are just empty and it was just what I needed today.

(Myrtle Beach SC 8/25/19)

 I even wrote in the sand.

Not the best art but, I enjoyed making it. On my way back to the car I walked slowly and founds some really nice sea shells I'd like to make some jewelry out of. I came home, took a shower, took a nice nap.

Just finished grilling dinner for the Mr. and now I am trying to settle in for the night. Thought I would share my day with you before I close the computer for the night. Going to get into bed, pray, read and read some scriptures. I pray you all had a relaxing Sunday. 

Peach Pitts

I think my verdict is finally in on the reboot of BH90210 and the verdict is, drum roll....................................

It's not for me anymore. Sure, when I was in my early twenties I was a completely devoted to the show, characters and story lines but now, umm, not so much..

I really wanted to like it. I so wanted to like it but the story line is just the same thing we see the country divided over day in and day out. 

The whole "Gabrielle" exploring her homosexual side, the adultery, the whole, "I am woman hear me roar" feminism that has only served to hurt women more than it's ever helped them with Ian Zerring and the new female writer . Nah, nope. 

I've grown up. I don't agree with any of it, I don't like and I don't want to have anything to do with any of it. This show is just what it's like being 'of this world' and personally I am not 'of' this world. 
I am 'in' it but I am not 'of' it. 

So the "new" BH90210 will no longer be on my TV and honestly I don't think it's going to make it past two seasons anyway, IF it even makes it past the first. 

Figuring It Out

I think as people we are always evolving, always changing. I think with each new season of life we change and, I believe I am changing again or I should correctly say, I think the Lord is changing me again. As you read further please remember this is just my opinion about myself. You do not have to agree, we CAN agree to disagree all I ask is that you be respectful in the comment section. 

For most of my life when it came to dress I was always one who wore tight, skin tight jeans, and tops. Then again for most of my life I had the figure to do it and, these days, it doesn't seem to matter if you have the figure or not women are still doing it. I am less than a year away from being Fifty God willing, and I no longer have the figure I once had but thinking about it I believe even if I did I would no longer dress in that way or in a manner that makes men undress you with their eyes. I used to believe that was fine. That "I still had it".. At least that's what the world tells us. God tells us as women something entirely different. 

Over the past year or so I have been trying to get closer and closer to God. Wanting to live for Him, and how He wants me to live, the way He wants me to live and I know my former way of dressing is not it.  In the past year I have been dressing more modestly, something that is severely lacking in today's society and fashions. 

Lately I have really been wanting to dress more feminine. It makes me feel more like a lady and it also projects to others that I respect myself and they should too although the later doesn't always works because not everyone in this world was taught manners. Another thing severely lacking in our society and a post for another day. 

Getting back to my 'new body shape' I have to relearn how to dress and it's not easy. I know the basic style for my body but today's fashions are fast fashion, you know, the kind that lasts maybe a season and then it's time for new because it's already worn out. To dress in quality clothing these days is expensive. So I have just been looking around on the internet at all different websites to see styles, quality, price and it can just be overwhelming! So, I am very slowly trying to figure it out.. Do any of you who dress modestly have any good places you can get quality, modest, yet feminine clothing that isn't the price of a mortgage payment? Please let me know in the comments. I am kind of feeling like I am out in the middle of the ocean without a life jacket here. 

It's Been Lost

The art of homemaking has all but been lost. There are still a few of us left but the numbers are dwindling. Homemaking like so many good and healthy things of the past have been lost and replaced by the modern way of doing things, most of which are not very good for the individual person nor the family unit. 

When I was a child in the 1970's homemaking was still alive and well in most homes. Before my father passed away in 1979 my mother was a stay at home mom. A, homemaker. She kept our home neat and clean, along with our bedrooms and clothing. She cooked good hearty meals for her growing children and hard working husband. Dinner time was at five pm every night and we would sit around the table as a family and talk about our day. My parents mostly wanted to know what we did in school, how was the day etc. These days family units rarely exist anymore. Everyone, including the children are all going in five directions at once. There is no more family dinner talk, children and adults grab something on the fly or they are staring at smart phones, TV's, video games. All of this has helped lead to the breakdown of the family. Saint John Paul II once said, "As the family goes so goes the world". He couldn't have been more right. 

Children are no longer brought up in a God loving home, where Mom is always there making life pleasant instead, children are career goal driven from the time they can walk. It's all about their future careers and how much money that will bring them so they can buy lots of things. It is extremely rare these days to find children being reared in a Godly home, instilled with good morals and values, helping at home and just being children. I met a grandmother the other day while standing in line at the store. She had her two year old grand-daughter with her who was, playing on her 'smart phone". She couldn't talk much but she knew how to use a smart phone at two years old. These days we are starting to scramble our childrens brains with electronics from the moment they can walk. 

Young girls are being taught they don't 'need no man', boys are being taught 'it's okay to be a girl' and some girls are being taught it's okay to be a boy. The femininity that was once the beauty of being female has been turned into masculinity and the masculinity that was once the beauty of being a boy and one day a man has all but been lost as well and turned into something feminine.  

Young adults these days are among the most confused, and misdirected humans anyone has ever seen. They do not know right from wrong anymore they hold no moral values to what is good. All of this is so incredibly sad. 

In my day I did not have any of the issue's these children and young adults of today do. We did not worry about sex at the age of five, we did not worry 'what gender we wanted to be at three years of age. We were children. We played like children we were sheltered as much as possible from the cruel things of the world for as long as possible. For most children my age, mom was home.... making home a place you always wanted to be, dad was out making a living to support us all. We had a set dinner time every night and the family table was for eating and sharing our day. Weekends were for family, friends and family vacations in the summer. There were no electronics to get in the way, there was no TV time during dinner or any other time it was not permitted. We played outside in the sunshine and caught lightening bugs after the sun went down. Although I don't 'like' getting older I am truly grateful for having grown up in the time I did..Most of us, compared to today had an idyllic childhood. And that idyllic childhood was made possible for us because of homemakers. 

I pray that young parents of today will see the value and importance in being a homemaker and rearing children in a Godly home, and letting them just be children before the world attempts to corrupt them. This is what the world needs again. Old fashioned ways of living all propped upon the homemaker and the love she brings to it. 

How Do They Do It?

I just don't know how they do it anymore. I was sitting here today thinking about growing up and living most of my life in New Jersey. I lived only about thirty minutes away from New York city. Back in the 1970's it was considered "Suburbia", "country". Now a days it's a city and an extremely expensive one at that. The house I grew up in my parents purchased in 1967 for Twenty Thousand Dollars. It was a nice home, a modest cape cod with smaller rooms. That's how homes were built back then. The last time I saw it listed in the market for sale it had a price tag of FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS with Five THOUSAND a year in property tax!.

I was just floored. Absolutely floored. The structure of the house is still the same. Of course over the years new owners have made changes but it's still on the same 50 X 100 lot. You can't expand or add an addition but now it's all about, location, location, location. 

I have family who still live in New Jersey a few towns over from the town my brother and I grew up in and the population explosion over the last twenty years has been insane. The traffic is beyond insane and I began to think, how does my family still handle living in that constant rat race up there? 

MSL and I moved to South Carolina back in 2003. At first and for the first eight years or so it was a major culture shock to me. I was used to the 'rat race', pounding the concrete, eating stress for breakfast and now, just thinking about it all makes me exhausted. I realized I have acclimated to my surroundings down here in the country parts of the South where life is a bit slower, people are friendlier and God is everywhere. I used to think I could or wanted to move back 'home' to be near my family again and yes, while I do miss them I now know there is no way I could handle living up there again. I wouldn't mind visiting for a short time but to live there again, no, it's not in me anymore. 

I saw a t-shirt on Fakebook (facebook) the other day that I would love to have. It said, "I like to stay in bed, it's too Peopley outside". That is me to a T. No pun intended. I like people, I like to be social but I like it at a distance now. I like my quiet country mornings and nights. I hear no sirens, no airplanes except on the rare occasion a flight path is changed, I hear no honking horns, no neighbors yelling at each other. Yes, I like living in the South. 

My Kind Of Day

(photo credit 1stdibs.com)

It's Sunday evening at almost Eight PM and I am tired but, it's a good tired for a good day. I am sure to some it would be a boring day for them but for me, this was a good day. 

It's Sunday which means it's the Lords day which means it's Mass for me. I am a practicing Catholic and Sunday belongs to the Lord. Well, every day belongs to Him but on Sunday I try and make that day just a little more special as He has requested. Wake up came at Five AM. Mass is at Eight AM and I need time to get something to eat, have some coffee, then get myself ready.. If I could get up at Five AM everyday I would because that hour between five and six am in my home is one of the quietest I get all day but I have tried in the past and it just doesn't work. My body doesn't like it all the time so one day a week it works for me and I am sure that the Lord has his hand in that.

I was out the door by Seven-Thirty Am and on the road to Church. Mass was so incredibly peaceful this morning and I left feeling spiritually and physically lighter than when I went in. Afterwards, I had to run to ChinaMart (Walmart) to pick up a few food items for the week. I really didn't want too but sometimes on a Sunday it can't be avoided. When I got home MSL had done all the morning dishes and so we sat at the dining room table for a while and talked a bit over coffee.

Yours truly after I got home from Mass. I wore a dress and I also had a little bolero sweater on to cover my shoulders as I try very hard not to allow my shoulders to be exposed during Mass.

By Eleven AM I was getting tired. My physically body is good for about  six hours before I start getting pretty tired and the RA pain starts to ramp up so for once I listened to my body and went to lay down. I fell asleep a bit after One PM and slept until Three PM. When I woke up I wasn't all that hungry so I just had some pureed prunes (yes I know some people think they are gross but they are good for your stomach), half a cookie and that was it. Talked with MSL for a little bit and by Four PM it was time to feed the dogs. Once that was finished I sat an relaxed for a little while and afterwards it was time to get dressed and head back to the Church for an hour of Adoration with our Lord. For non-Catholics if you don't know what Adoration is, just Google it and you can learn all about it. 

My time slot was Five Pm to Six Pm and it was, well, for me, glorious. It was just me and the Lord and in the small chapel all alone. I looked at Him and He looked at me. I talked to Him for a good long time, prayed for others, prayed the Rosary and then sat and listened for the Lord for a bit. Before I knew it the Church bells were chiming and it was time to go home. I would have liked to have stayed longer with Him but I knew it was my place to go home and cook dinner for MSL. Tonight's dinner was a simple one and I am blessed that MSL isn't picky. Just cooked up a chicken breast in some olive oil and cut it up over a spring mix salad with the some Raspberry Vinaigrette dressing and dinner was done. Cleaned up the kitchen, straightened the house a bit, took off my makeup and here I am. Time to relax for the evening.

I do hope you all had a wonderful Sunday also. If it was a stressful Sunday or a busy Sunday try best you can this week to make a plan on how to make your Sunday one that is almost stress free, carefree and dedicated to the Lord. I can tell you that you won't be sorry.