Dismantling My Google Reader Feed

So, I heard awhile back that Google is dumping Google Reader - much to the chagrin of many.

But I have a confession to make. Google Reader never really worked very well for me. It was more of an occasion for feelings of guilt because I could never plug through everything I wanted to. And once I scrolled past it, it felt like it was gone forever.

What I've decided to do, and might actually work better for me (you can check it out in the sidebar here!) is re-expand my list of blogs that I read with Blogger's nice little "Blog List" widget. This provides the title of the latest post on all of my favorite blogs, which allows me to skim and meander at my own pace.

These are all the blogs that I would ideally like to follow (though I am probably missing some), with the exception of blogs that I tend to read via Facebook.

All of the blogs on my list are ones that I'm interested in reading. It's as simple as that. Some because they are friends or relatives of mine, some because I find interesting insights that are helpful to me, etc. A few have not been updated in awhile, but I'd still like to check them out when they are updated. One will, sadly, never be updated again, but I like to go back and meander around there sometimes too. That's the one that was written by dear friend Katrina, who passed away last November after a long struggle with ALS.

Just thought I'd post a little invitation to check out the blog list (though it makes it feeling like I'm going "back to the beginning" because that's pretty much how my sidebar started when I first started blogging). Please feel free to post in the comments any suggestions for blogs I may have forgotten or may enjoy reading.

Blessings on your day! :)

Fr. Emil Kapaun receives (posthumously) the Congressional Medal of Honor

(cross-posted from Living Differently)

This is an amazing story, told in summary (but clearly with admiration!) by the president at the presentation ceremony...

Happy Feast of the Annunciation!

A Blessed Feast of the Annunciation! I don't have much time for blogging right now, but I thought it would be a good time to share a post I wrote about the Incarnation for Melanie's Blog Series on the Creed:

"Was Incarnate of the Virgin Mary"

More Papal Coolness...

In honor of the historic meeting today between Pope Francis and our Pope Emeritus...

Thus, the dialogue had already started, even though the the personal, physical meeting had not yet taken place. Let us also remember that the retired Pope had already expressed his unconditional reverence and obedience to his successor at his farewell meeting with the Cardinals, February 28, and certainly in this [morning’s] meeting - which was a moment of profound and elevated communion –will have had the opportunity to renew this act of reverence and obedience to his successor, and certainly Pope Francis renewed his gratitude and that of the whole Church for Pope Benedict’s ministry during his pontificate”.

 Read the whole article on the Vatican News Website. 

Photo from The Youth Evangelization

Habemus Papam!

I know I'm a little behind on blogging this fact, but it seems so perfectly congruous with this particular blog (I do blog at several other places where this fact has been mentioned) that I figured I was better late than never.

We are thrilled about our new Holy Father, who seems to offer an amazing continuation of our last two popes. This is especially clear to me as a big fan of Pope Benedict's writings. It seems to me that the Christian message that was so beautifully articulated in his writings are also beautifully embodied in Pope Francis' spirit and personality. I rather liked this photo collage on this continuity concept, which I found somewhere on Facebook...

 I was amused and touched by this picture of Pope Francis riding the busy back to St. Martha House with the rest of the cardinals. :)

And this picture is simply beautiful...

  

How exciting to have the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople present at the Pope's Inaugural Mass (with much credit to Pope Benedict XVI too!)

And I love this video of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist finding out about the new pope. The novice who brings in the message of "white smoke" is a homeschool grad whose mom has been an Internet friend of mine for years.



I have to say we were this excited too! I was over at our parish school with two of the kids just finishing up our weekly chess excursion with the school kids at lunch when I got a call from my 17 year old. I actually didn't have a chance to answer (I was busy untangling the visitor badge from my scarf!!!) but I knew it must be about the white smoke, which was confirmed seconds later by someone in the school office. My kids were beside themselves to hurry home as quickly as we possibly could. We were strangely stunned by the expected news. (There was some discussion about wanting to use the "A-word" even though it's Lent because they were so happy and excited. One of them finally blurted out, in an exultant voice, "A-word!". LOL.) It did seem very quick. Waiting to find out who the new pope was very hard (we finally started a board game to help pass the time).

When we finally heard the announcement about who it was, we were a little confused because we were using the list of Latin Surnames of the Cardinals from the CNS Blog and the first entry under "George" was so long that I at first didn't realize that there were quite a few Georges. ;)

Anyway, we are all very joyful about everything we've seen and heard about Pope Francis. Love the tribute to St. Francis of Assisi (it even surprised me in a way that there hasn't yet been a Pope Francis already), love the Jesuit connection and love his unique bridge-building capacity between orthodoxy and social justice (which certainly do belong together!).

And so God Bless Pope Francis! Viva il Papa! :)


Oh, and I almost forgot. Ria showed up on the CBS Evening News, who filmed a little piece at Thomas Aquinas College on young peoples' reactions to the new Pope (she's in a few of the still photos)...



That's her on the upper left before you start the video.

Favorite authors maybe?

G.K. Chesterton and Pope Benedict XVI take the cake for a whole shelf-full each, though I must admit to having a lot left to read on both shelves.

Cardinal Newman on Joy

I recently ordered a handful of back issues of Communio Magazine, which are handily organized according to topic. And thus what I ordered were a few backissues on topics of particula interest to me. The one I dived right into was on "Joy" (dating from Summer 2004) and I just had to ot down this lovely thought from Blessed John Henry Newman that is quoted within:

Gloom is no Christian temper; that repentance is not real which has not love in it; that self-chastisement is not acceptable which is not sweetened by faith and cheerfulness. We must live in sunshine, even when we sorrow; we must live in God's presence, we must not shut ourselves up in our own hearts, even when we are reckoning up our past sins... We must look abroad into this fair world, which God made 'very good,' while we mourn over the evil which Adam brought into it. We must hold communion with what we see there while we seek Him who is invisible; we must admire it while we abstain from it; acknowledge God's love while we deprecate his wrath; confess that, many as are our sins, His grace is greater. Our sins are more in number than the hairs of our head; yet even the hairs of our head are all numbered by Him. He counts our sins, and, as he counts, so can He forgive; for that reckoning, great though it be, comes to an end; but His mercies fail not, and His Son's merits are infinite.

 I think this is not just a lovely thought, but an important one!

Saying Goodbye to Pope Benedict

This blog hasn't been very active for awhile, but it doesn't take much digging through the archives to realize that I've done a lot of blogging on Pope Benedict and his writings (especially) here in the past and that his writings have had an enormous impact on my life.

Here are a few significant snippets:

"The more we know of the universe the more profoundly we are struck by a Reason whose ways we can only contemplate with astonishment. In pursuing them we can see anew that creating Intelligence to whom we owe our own reason. Albert Einstein once said that in the laws of nature "there is revealed such a superior Reason that everything significant which has arisen out of human thought and arrangement is, in comparison with it, the merest empty reflection." In what is most vast, in the world of heavenly bodies, we see revealed a powerful Reason that holds the universe together. And we are penetrating ever deeper into what is smallest, into the cell and into the primordial units of life; here, too, we discover a Reason that astounds us, such that we must say with Saint Bonaventure: "Whoever does not see here is blind. Whoever does not hear here is deaf. And whoever does not begin to adore here and to praise the creating Intelligence is dumb"... God himself shines through the reasonableness of his creation. Physics and biology, and the natural sciences in general, have given us a new and unheard-of creation account with vast new images, which let us recognize the face of the Creator and which make us realize once again that at the very beginning and foundation of all being there is a creating Intelligence. The universe is not the product of darkness and unreason. It comes from intelligence, freedom, and from the beauty that is identical with love. Seeing this gives us the courage to keep on living, and it empowers us, comforted thereby, to take upon ourselves the adventure of life." (from Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI)

"The mistaken attitude is that of fear," the Bishop of Rome stated. "The servant who fears his master and fears his return, hides the coin in the ground and it does not produce any fruit. This happens, for example, to those who, having received baptism, Communion, and confirmation bury such gifts beneath prejudices, a false image of God that paralyzes faith and works, so as to betray the Lord's expectations."

"But," Benedict XVI continued, "the parable puts greater emphasis on the good fruits born by the disciples who, happy at the gift received, did not hide it with fear and jealously, but made it fruitful, sharing it, participating in it. Indeed, what Christ gives us is multiplied when we give it away! It is a treasure that is made to be spent, invested, shared with all, as the Apostle Paul, that great administrator of Jesus' talents, has taught us." (From an Angelus talk given in 2008 )

"But in truly great trials, where I must make a definitive decision to place the truth before my own welfare, career, and possessions, I need the certitude of that true, great hope of which we have spoken here. For this too we need witnesses - martyrs - who have given themselves totally, so as to show us the way - day after day. We need them if we are to prefer goodness to comfort, even in the little choices we face each day - knowing that this is how we live life to the full. Let us say it once again: the capacity to suffer for the sake of truth is the measure of humanity. Yet this capacity to suffer depends on the type and extent of the hope that we bear within us and build upon. The saints were able to make the great journey of human existence in the way that Christ had done before them, because they were brimming with great hope." (from Spe Salvi)

"A society unable to accept its suffering members and incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through "com-passion" is a cruel and inhuman society. Yet society cannot accept is suffering members and support them in their trials unless individuals are capable of doing so themselves; moreover, the individual cannot accept another's suffering unless he personally is able to find meaning in suffering, a path of purification and growth in maturity, a journey of hope. Indeed, to accept the "other" who suffers, means that I take up his suffering in such a way that it becomes mine also. Because it has now become a shared suffering, though, in which another person is present, this suffering is penetrated by the light of love. The Latin word con-solation, "consolation," expresses this beautifully. It suggests being with the other in his solitude, so that it ceases to be solitude. Furthermore, the capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth, and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reign supreme. Truth and justice must stand above my comfort and physical well-being, or else my life itself becomes a lie. In the end, even the "yes" to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my "I," in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded. Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love." (also from Spe Salvi)

 "We can try to limit suffering, to fight against it, but we cannot eliminate it. It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater. It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it, and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love." (also from Spe Salvi)

“To have Christian hope means to know about evil and yet to go to meet the future with confidence. The core of faith rests upon accepting being loved by God, and therefore to believe is to say Yes, not only to him, but to creation, to creatures, above all, to men, to try to see the image of God in each person and thereby to become a lover. That’s not easy, but the basic Yes, the conviction that God has created men, that he stands behind them, that they aren’t simply negative, gives love a reference point that enables it to ground hope on the basis of faith.” (from Salt of the Earth)

Okay, that was more than a few. I just couldn't help myself. For the most part these weren't entirely new concepts to me, but these readings shed light upon them, delved deeper into them and made them concrete for me. I turn to these ideas again and again in my every day life.

It's certainly been a big day for the Catholic Church. I am finding myself feeling... quiet. I don't feel terribly sad (certainly not like mourning Pope John Paul II). I have a lot of confidence in our new pope emeritus which makes me feel comfortable with his decision. I feel a great sense of gratitude for all he has done for us, especially with his beautiful writings. I feel a great sense of relief for him. And I feel a great sense of anticipation for what is to come.

One of the neatest things I've seen on the Internet in these recent days is this website which helps you choose a cardinal to pray for: Adopt a Cardinal My kids have each picked out their own cardinal to pray for. Not only is it good to pray for them, but I think it helps the kids be a little more connected to the process.

Getting Organized, Part Two

I'm particularly excited about this area of organization because I was horribly bogged down with paperwork from everything flying about everywhere and generally found it too overwhelming to do much about digging myself out from it.

This also came from an idea from Pinterest, from this pin as a matter of fact:

Source: repinly.com via Alicia on Pinterest

...but I really took the initial idea and ran with it to a new level (and I'm not sure I ever actually read that post - the image was really helpful, though!). 

Basically what it amounts to is a cabinet dedicated to binders for household and school paperwork (one shelf for each). My modus operandi is basically to dedicate a binder to each area of complex paperwork, i.e. paperwork which can't just simply be filed but that needs to be referenced or attended to on a regular basis. A few of them aren't so much about organizing paperwork per se, but paperwork related information, such as passwords for various websites.

Here is a picture of part of the cabinet (about 1/4 of the binders):

This project cost me about $100 in binders and binder dividers/organizers (various sorts of tabbed dividers, tab stickers and a big box of sheet protectors, which also make lovely pockets). The cost was actually pretty low because I was able to re-purpose a bunch of binders that were no longer being used in other places (Because of this, it's not as picture perfect as the Pinterest version, but I really am not bothered by this in the least!). I've been using this system for about six months now and I LOVE it!!!

The best way to share this project, I think, is to write up a list of those that might be useful for others to consider and then pull out a few sample binders to describe for you in more detail - there are lots of odds and ends besides these.

Budget and Spending (at the moment this consists of bank and credit card statements)

College Finances (This is organized into the following categories: tuition, financial aid, student loan, taxes and bookstore)

House (for keeping receipts, paint color info and anything else useful)

Medical Stuff (I actually have four binders in this realm - Orthodontics, Dentist, Medical and one just for our primary care doctor's clinic - these are organized according to need. Medical is divided according to our needs for submitting information to get reimbursed from our HSA or FSA or whatever that thing is. The clinic one is organized by family member.)

Repeatables Calendar (a permanent place to record birthdays and other happenings that I want to remember EVERY year - I have a page each in each month divider for family stuff, financial stuff, school stuff, etc.)

Taxes (I use pocket dividers here to collect paperwork throughout the year in the following categories: Income, House, Charity, College, Interest, Invesment)

Vital Records (no more running up and down the basement stairs every time I need to reference one of these - yay!)

Warranties (This is mostly a bundle of sheet protectors with sticky tabs to organize them alphabetically and make sense out of what's in each pocket.)

Manuals (Pretty much the same as above, but a much thicker binder!)

Here are a few pictures of the College Finance binder to give you an idea...

The kids helped me make the cover pages. :)

 Table of contents for College Finances binder.

I love having the sheet protectors ready to handle important paperwork until I have a chance to work on it - such as this financial aid application, which I need to tackle tomorrow.
 

Getting Organized, Part One...

While I'm always, to some extent, working on getting things better organized in our very active and sometimes chaotic household, I've been on a pretty good roll in making new and substantial progress and improvement in the last six months or so and I thought it might be a good thing to share some of these ideas on this blog (partly as a way of getting more actively blogging once again).

Honestly, I have to credit the beginning of this new streak with my joining of Pinterest. While some people find it a place to waste too much time dreaming of things, it hit me in just the right place and provided inspiration where I was in need of it. I actually joined Pinterest to get some ideas for how to paint our sunroom, which was both too dark (a brick red) and very worn in the paint department and had several complications - like a bunch of wood trim that had quite a bit of water damage (mostly from window condensation). Just for fun, here is a little before and after...

We managed to build up enough momentum after this tough job to tackle three more painting projects (that weren't nearly as hard as this one - painting all of that trip was a real chore, but very much worth it) - the dining room (which has been a dingy light blue ever since we moved in - it is now a rather cheery yellow), the deck (which simply needed a new coat of paint) and the "cloak room", which had a bunch of torn wallpaper. 

This cloak room turned out to be pretty interesting, again thanks to Pinterest. I found a recipe there for chalkboard paint. It was a combination of old paint and powdered tile grout, both of which we had kicking around the basement in abundance from old projects (particularly from our old house, which was a real fixer-upper and caused to become connoisseurs of "oops" paint from Home Depot). It was a messy project as I think the recipe was intended for more of a chalkboard sized area, but it came out pretty well, in spite of the fact that there was a certain amount of mixing that was contemporaneous with the actual process of painting. ;)

This was stage one of the organizing process after-joining-Pinterest. I'm even more excited about stage two because it involves the bane of my existence as a busy mom - paperwork!

P.S. I really ought to be able to find a better after picture of the sunroom. Let me see what I can do...

I couldn't find one from the same angle, but I rather like this one. :)