Author Archives: Jen

About Jen

Jen isn't quite sure when she lost her mind, but it is probably documented here on Meditatio. She blogs because the world needs her snark at all hours of the night... and she probably can't sleep anyway.

Five Favorites: Miscellanea (XVI)

Posted on by

Five Favorites

One

Doctors who suture stuffed animals while they fix their humans. This story is tear-jerking. It took five minutes to suture the hole in the stuffed wolf’s shoulder, bandage the “wound”, and put it in a mask and gloves. However, this is a 5-minute job that a young boy is not going to forget. (Ask me about my stuffed cat “Sam”.)

Two

ABA tutors who use every trick in their arsenal to get children to comply. Daniel has been in an “I-really-don’t-want-to-work” mode this week and EG (his Monday/Wednesday/Friday tutor) has been finding new and creative ways to reinforce him when he complies. (Translation: “he rewards him when he works.”)

Three

Thomas. My blogging buddy Thomas has a really precarious situation on his hands. His wife is pregnant with his twin sons and is experiencing serious complications. We’re being asked to participate in a novena to St. Gerard for them, ending on the 24th. If you’re not Catholic, please just pray.

Four

Iced whole milk vanilla lattés from It’s A Grind. I had one on Monday and it was the best one I’ve had in ages. Peet’s is also good. $tarbux, not so much. (They’re too stingy with their shots and their syrups.)

Five

The Giants’ 19-3 victory over the Dodgers. Yes, they lost to the Mets tonight and that fateful game was almost a week ago but they shut down the freaking Dodgers and set a record for the largest number of points scored by any team at Dodgers Stadium. It’s makes their abysmal record worth it.

Go love up Hallie and the others.

{Virtual} Coffee Date (vol. 7)

Posted on by

{Virtual Coffee Date}

Once you’re done here, go visit Karianna and the other coffee drinkers.

If we were having coffee, I would ask what the heck is going on with my friends getting stuff tossed at them. My friend Anna was widowed last week and my friend Thomas’ wife is having serious complications with her pregnancy with their twin sons. Enough already, God!

If we were having coffee, I would tell you about taking Daniel to the pediatrician tomorrow to get his gait checked. With our luck, we’ll have one more consult to do and this time with orthopedics. Whee!

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that Daniel finally has an ABA tutor for Tuesdays and Thursdays. This eliminates my ability to do a Trader Joe’s run in the afternoon or to grab prescriptions with him but I’m willing to give that up if it means that he gets 40 full hours of ABA every week.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I’m strangely addicted to the show “Class of the Titans” on Qubo. It’s kind of interesting to see how various people from Greek mythology are rendered in the 21st century.

Thanks for having coffee (tea) with me. See you next week!

52 Weeks of Blogging with a Purpose: High School Back Then

Posted on by

This week’s topic: high school back then.

Yeah, high school left serious welts on my psyche so I’m trying to come up with good things.

OK… highlights of high school:

[+] AP classes. Yes, I am a nerd. 🙂 I was “that girl” who took the most challenging classes she could (except for math — math and I didn’t get along until I was done with calculus) and this meant 2 AP classes a year when I was a junior and senior. My US History class was set up as a “college class”. We had “lecture” one day and they opened up the dividers between classrooms so all 4 classes could have the same “lecture” and then the next day or two would be “small group” where we would discuss the lecture with our actual teacher. It was brutal at the time but really prepped me for college. AP Biology was fun — we dissected minks and it was interesting. AP French was kind of the default for the 4th year of French at my high school and it was a language so I loved it. My AP English teacher had a saying that “everyone needs to bring something to the party” and it was one of those classes where you had better have done the reading and be ready to contribute.

[+] Music Appreciation. I took the *BEST* Music Appreciation class with a teacher who had a passion for communicating it to his students and who got even the slackers to dress up and haul butt to ballets, symphony concerts, and operas. It was pretty common to see one of the slackers at a concert in a shirt and tie and to think “dang… they clean up well!” I saw some amazing ballet, was close enough to the pianist at one symphony concerts to see that his socks didn’t match, and saw “I Pagliacci” and “La Boheme”. I mean, I was a pianist and classical vocalist so a lot of it, I would have learned anyway but my teacher taught others how to read music! He also got me (Miss “Terrified of Solos”) up and doing a duet with one of the other girls in my class. It was also good to get class credit for participating in the “You-Sing-It Messiah” with the San Jose Symphonic Choir.

[+] Proving my Junior English teacher wrong. My teacher for Junior Honors English was a wench. She took particular joy in torturing particular students in each class and I was one of her favorite targets. One of my friends actually took a couple of my essays to her AP English teacher who read them and told her that my English teacher was batcrap crazy. She refused to give me a recommendation for AP English which I took anyway… and I got straight A’s in the class while her pets dropped out in the first week because they couldn’t deal with having to regurgitate the 8 books we had to read over the summer for timed writings. I’m not the bigger person so I *did* mention sweetly that I got straight A’s in AP English to her at graduation though I refrained from calling her the things I wanted to call her.

I think I’ll go nurse my re-opened wounds now.

Now go see Becky and what everyone else did in high school.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: September 15, 2013

Posted on by

Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY September 15, 2013

Outside my window… dark here. It was warm and sunny today.

I am thinking… that it’s going to be a crazy week.

I am thankful… for those praying for Thomas.

In the kitchen… dishes to do.

I am wearing… Jon’s “Red Green” shirt and black sweats.

I am creating… blog post coding for the week.

I am going… to hope I can be productive tomorrow.

I am wondering… what this week holds.

I am reading… Sundays in America by Suzanne Strempek Shea.

I am hoping… our beginning of toilet-training Daniel this week goes well.

I am looking forward to… an iced vanilla latté at some point this week.

I am learning to read labels better so I don’t accidentally buy the wrong thing. (Not that it happened to me…)

Around the house… decluttering and shredding to do.

I am pondering… too many things internally.

A favorite quote for today… ??Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.?? ? C.S. Lewis

One of my favorite things… calm and quiet.

A few plans for the rest of the week: ABA therapy on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, a pediatrics appointment for Daniel on Wednesday, and (I think) a massage for me on Friday.

Hosted by The Simple Woman’s Daybook

7 Quick Takes: eScapegoat, What I’m Reading, and Problems With Halloween Costumes

Posted on by

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Orphans. Do you see these two sweet children?

L-R: Brett and Iris
BrettIris

Brett still needs a mama. Iris finally has a family committed to her and they are compiling their dossier to send to her country.

Click on their names to see their Reece’s Rainbow pages.

— 2 —

eScapegoat. Do you need to atone for your sins? You’re in luck! In Biblical times, the high priest would attach the sins of Israel to a goat and set it free in the wilderness. These days, you can do it all online!

— 3 —

A note to my black cat. Edda, I love you very much. You are a wonderful house panther with a coat made of satin. Having said that, you are very difficult to see at 1 a.m. when I’m staggering to the bathroom and it means that I might accidentally step on your tail. I’m sorry if I do but you should have let me put that glow-in-the-dark collar on you so I could know where you are.

Snuggles,
Mommy

— 4 —

Hiccups. I’ve got pretty bad hiccups right now. Sometimes, I’ll get them pretty badly and I guess this is one of those times. Want to leave me your favorite hiccup cures in the comment section? Please and thank you. 🙂

— 5 —

Word, Kelly. Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum has a wonderful post on the problems with Halloween costume companies. Seriously? A zombie sock monkey costume? A bat fairy? Sexy “Oscar the Grouch”? I am so not looking forward to picking out Daniel’s Halloween costume.

— 6 —

Book Club. (No, I’m not part of one.) I’m currently reading Sundays in America by Suzanne Strempek Shea and I still want to smack her every time she brings up how gays and lesbians would not be welcome at the churches. Princess, you don’t know that! Of course, next on Mount TBR is Pastorix by Nadia Bolz-Weber who has a habit of not being safe for work… or admitting I know in the presence of parishioners. (If you don’t know who she is and why this might be controversial, the website for the book is here.) I don’t necessarily agree with her on many things but she has a habit of saying things that I think the Church at large needs to hear about grace.

— 7 —

Sigh. The Giants are playing the Dodgers and the Dodgers are ahead by a run. It’s going to be a rather irritating night if they win. (For those who are new, I grew up rooting for the Giants and my husband Jon is a fan of the Other Team.) Then again, the Giants could pull this out of the bag but I’m not holding my breath given their current season and place in the standings.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

Five Favorites: Miscellanea (XV)

Posted on by

Five Favorites

One

Mater Eucharistiae CD. I first heard about this CD on Facebook (I think) and was blown away by it. The “Te Deum” is amazing and their arrangement of Palestrina’s “Sicut Cervus” is breathtaking. I sang in the UCSC Women’s Chorale in college and have a fondness for women doing chant so I downloaded it off of iTunes. If you order it from them here, they get a larger share of the profits which goes to help build their new priory outside Austin, TX.

Mater Eucharistiae CD

I also just found out that someone I know from a couple Facebook groups is a postulant with them. Small world.

Two

This song. Twelve years ago today, there was an impromptu prayer service called and the entire student body and faculty of my seminary (probably 150+ people) crowded into Schenk Chapel with some of us sitting and some of us standing. Our seminary president remembers it as one of the really formative times of his tenure and most of us students do as well, bringing it up on Facebook every year on this day. We alternated prayers with choruses of “Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying” and this Taizé chant:

Three

Sleep. I love sleep. I’m not getting much of it though and I’m trying not to nap today so that maybe I can get my sleep schedule back on track. I almost fell asleep today while getting my haircut — that takes some doing! If I’m not careful, I may fall asleep during my mani/pedi tomorrow.

Four

Grammar Nerd Jokes. I am a complete grammar nazi so I loved these jokes. With #11 though, I thought it was cruel to make a grammar nazi do math.

Five

The Giants winning. It’s been a bad season for them and I’m unfortunately married to a fan of their big rivals. I think baseball needs to come up in the pre-marital counseling next time…

Go love up Grace (who is guest-hosting this week) and the others.

{Virtual} Coffee Date (vol. 6)

Posted on by

{Virtual Coffee Date}

Once you’re done here, go visit Karianna and the other coffee drinkers.

If we were having coffee, I’d introduce you to Miss Isabella Heaton… formerly known as my Reece’s Rainbow Guardian Angel child, Kaia.

Miss Isabella Heaton

Isn’t she adorable?

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about torquing a muscle in my neck while holding Daniel’s head still so his audiologist could take molds for hearing aids. I’ve been getting intimate with some Flexeril and Aleve (which I’m not supposed to have) ever since. It was for a good cause though — the bear child will have hearing aids in 3 weeks. God willing, it will help with him developing speech.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you about breaking my keyboard. My H key was sticking so I pried it up to see what was wrong… and broke part of it off. I need to go track my new one and see when it should be arriving…

If we were having coffee, I would tell you about the amazing visit I had with my family this weekend. Mom and I went to Whole Foods with Daniel, took him to the local nursery where I had him find me flowers and things that were certain colors, got lots of coffee at Peet’s, and had fun attempting to avoid the heat. My dad was also adorable with him. (He and Daniel just understand each other.)

Thanks for having coffee (or tea) with me. See you next week!