Sounds of Hope

My Easter worship came last night.  This seems to be a year of liturgical firsts.  Last night my Easter worship came at St. Ann’s Roman Catholic Church.  It was a long Mass.  It was an interesting Mass.  I had a personal reason to be there.  My oldest daughter has decided to become part of the Roman Catholic church.  I watched her be baptized for the fourth time in her life.  I thought of her first baptism. My husband was the first to spot her.  She stood by the side door of the church.  I looked.  I looked again, and again… I thought is that Bethany?  Her hair is now a subdued brown much like my natural hair color.  I looked several times.  Once again, it was looking in the mirror.  I thought that can’t be Bethany.  She’s a woman.  I’ve known in my head that she’s a woman for a long time.  Yet, looking at her last night I saw myself.  I saw myself when I was that age.  I saw myself and...

I have often told myself that I am silly for feeling the way I do.  Maybe I am.  Maybe I am not.  The older I get the less judgmental I get about myself and everyone else.  I have been learning to “be.”  To accept who I am.  I don’t think it is unique to want to feel special and loved.  Last night I felt special and loved. Yesterday was my 33 rd wedding anniversary.  It started pretty much the same as any other day.  I was sick, which actually isn’t that unusual on our anniversary since it comes at the peak of flu season.  I don’t have the flu but I am sick.  I’m coughing and coughing and feel miserable.  I had been up late waiting for my husband, hoping to see his reaction to the anniversary present I got for him.  I wrote about it here . He came home that night with an odd but beautiful assortment of flowers.  I’ve arranged them on my dining room table.  They are pretty.  At midnight, the beginning of o...

What a weekend!   I feel like I am paying for some horrible sins – perhaps the sin of not liking South Dakota OR maybe it is the curse that people who never understood put on my exit from South Dakota.   As with all experiences of this type, you do learn.   The best thing I learned – something I did already know but was reminded of this weekend, is that my daughter Bethany is amazing.   I don’t know anyone else, family or otherwise, who would sacrifice and do what she did for us this weekend.   We had a grueling trip to South Dakota and back.   We out beat the blizzard that dumped 11 inches on Brookings SD.   We spent about 62 hours on the road covering about 2000 miles.   In between the    hours and hours in the car, and the little bit of sleep, we packed our two bedroom apartment in South Dakota and loaded it on a truck and trailer.   To say that she and her family did 95% of the work is no exaggeration.   We stopp...

Have you ever heard the song about Barney Google, with the goo-goo-goo-ga-ly eyes ? Inspired by a comic strip, Barney had googly eyes. My dad used to sing this song sometimes. I can remember Sing-a-long with Mitch on the television with the bouncing ball helping us sing about Barney Google. It has a great catchy early jazz tune. I hope you’ll take the time to enjoy the video included. The word Google first came into the language in the early 1900’s in a children’s book The Google Book where googles inhabited googleland.  Now we use Google to refer to the search engine, Google reader, this blog is a Google blog, the list of parts of the Google Empire is very long. Before we Googled we “askjeeves,” went to altavista or some other search engine. Perhaps you are a “binger” trying the newer search engine BING. My favorite Google feature is Google Analytics .  I’ve used it since I first started to blog. Another blogger told me about this feature and I love it. Thanks to it, I kn...