Sad News

Henry has died.  Please pray for his family. Just as God gives us loved ones and does not lose them in giving, so we do not lose them in returning them to Him.  For life is eternal, love is immortal, and death is just a horizon  beyond which we cannot see with narrow, earthly vision. [...]

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Sick of Farmville

I didn’t get what the big deal was when I first started playing Farmville.  It seemed like a poor imitation of Farm Town, which I was already playing and enjoying.  In fact, I still think that most things about Farm Town are superior–the graphics, the speed, the flowers that don’t die, the ability to have [...]

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The Terrifying Teens

The thing about being the mother of three preschoolers is that eventually you will be the mother of three teenagers.  You hear a lot about the Terrible Twos, but what about the Terrifying Teens? With three teenagers in my house this summer, and with the tragedy of my friend’s hospitalized son to remind me of [...]

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A Relapse

Please, please send up your most fervent prayers for Henry, who is back in the ICU and in extremely critical condition.  Thank you.

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Big Catholic Families

I’m posting this column reprint as a followup to my “Why Stop at Two” post of a few weeks ago.  In that post, I talked about why we’ve chosen to have a big family; this post focuses on the Catholic Church’s teachings on family size.  This was too long for the East Tennessee Catholic in [...]

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Blasts from the past

O.K., here is a Bad Mother confession:  I have not put any pictures of my kids in albums since #3 was brand new.  He is now 15.  There is a large box next to my desk full of picture envelopes, and it’s not the only box I have.  So I think I will turn a [...]

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School’s Out!

Yesterday was the last day of school.  So we welcomed in summer with our traditional last day treat:  a trip to the Fountain City Creamery Park Grille for ice cream cones. We followed this with a walk around Fountain City Lake, a.k.a. the Duck Pond.  I have to say, though, that spending over $20 on [...]

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He’s a poet and we know it

My oldest son, Jake, has had a challenging semester, to put it mildly.  Tomorrow is the last day of his Sophomore year, and boy are we glad!  He took his Chemistry exam today, and for extra credit, wrote the following poem–which demonstrates that his true talents lie in the Humanities. Ode to Chemistry by Jake [...]

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Another guilty pleasure

I really dislike most children’s programming of the educational variety–it has a didactic tone that grates on me.  Every story may have a moral, but do we have to beat kids over the head with it?  And that’s why I love the Teletubbies.  I don’t feel like they are trying to teach me anything.  Instead, [...]

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For one of those days when you were wondering about God’s plan

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